For the Love of a Child
by Clashing Harmony
Summary: Pursued by Stryker's men and pregnant with the twins, Magda seeks shelter at the X mansion when she is unable to find Erik. Cain Marko has a secret and Emma simply wants some peace. Erik believes Charles is deliberately keeping his children from him. And little Wanda wants her mousse cake.


**1969**

Mystique tried to understand, once again, what had gone wrong. She couldn't think clearly. Something about the room made her delirious, unfocused. It was a feeling she wasn't used to; hadn't been for quite a few years now.

Pressed up against the far wall, she tried to gather what was left of her wits and think of a way out. Not that there seemed to be one. To her left, Emma was in her diamond form, unmoving as a bejewelled statue. To her right, Erik stood tense and on edge, an animal cornered and ready to spring. Fists clenched, teeth gritted, he strained futilely against the invisible bonds that held his powers in check.

The room was white, much like the rest of the lab that now lay in smouldering shambles around them. Even now, despite everything, the sight of the twisted cages and smoking bars sent a rush of adrenaline up her veins.

There was something different about this room, though. For one, it had no metal. The walls were panelled with some sort of reflective surface that looked like nothing so much as stainless steel. Unfortunately, its properties were anything but metallic. There was a strange buzzing noise in the background that gave her a headache.

The double doors in front of them were flung wide open, taunting them with freedom. They were flanked on both sides by uniformed guards wearing military camouflage. On the threshold stood Stryker, grinning with that psychotic edge that never seemed too far beneath the surface with him. He held a device that could have passed for a toy gun meant for toddlers. From what she could tell, it was some combination of plastic and rubber. Not the kind of thing that would immediately inspire alarm.

But the bastard held it pointed squarely at Erik's chest. And the easy confidence with which he held himself told her that the device must be lethal. There was a murderous glint in his eye that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on edge.

As imperceptibly as possible, Mystique gathered her strength and prepared to attack, to spring to Erik's defence the moment she saw an opening.

And then it all went to hell. A reverberating, piercing scream rang through the walls just as Stryker's fingers pressed up against the trigger. The men flanking the door dropped like flies. Mystique squinted. What the hell! They were snoring. Sound asleep.

His manic grin faltering, Stryker whipped around, murderous intent momentarily forgotten. A sudden light illuminated the entranceway and the colonel was blasted unceremoniously off his feet and thrown against the far wall, a few feet from Emma.

"Ah, Professor," said Emma, the diamond dissolving naturally around her pristine form.

"Miss Frost." Charles rolled casually into the room, flanked by Darwin, Alex and Sean. Mystique knew now where the scream had come from. And who had blasted Stryker across the room like a weightless rag doll. Which still didn't explain what her brother was doing here, of course.

"It's time to go," Charles said, preparing to turn the chair around. Mystique tried to peer unobtrusively at the man she still couldn't help but think of as her brother, despite everything. If possible, Charles looked even younger and more benign, ensconced in the large metallic contraption of a wheelchair. Oversized cardigan hanging loosely onto his thin frame, dark hair falling into his eyes, he looked almost small, helpless. Mystique wondered if the effect was deliberate. Knowing her brother, it probably was.

"Not until I have killed him!" Erik growled, launching himself at the fallen Stryker before Mystique had managed to get her bearings.

Charles's voice rang out. "Erik no–"

But it was too late. Stryker had shifted from his prone position on the ground and already fired his toy gun at the approaching Magneto.

Erik tried to twist out of the way of the oncoming projectile, only to be pushed aside by Darwin. The reflective bullet hit the younger man, causing angry red cracks to appear along the visible portions of his dark skin.

"Darwin!" Sean yelled, the sound like a million tiny pins pricking Mystique's brain.

But Darwin's skin was already knitting itself back together, the cracks closing to leave no sign of the damage behind but a few fine white lines, like the old scars of long-healed wounds.

The floor shifted under Mystique's feet, and the platform on which Stryker lay began to descend slowly into the ground. Erik snarled. "I _will_ kill you for what you have done here."

Moments before disappearing from sight, Stryker laughed. "What _I_ have done?" he sneered, his tone dripping with malice. "Well _I_ wasn't the one who stole your own children from you, was I Magneto?" For a moment, his hate-filled gaze rested on Charles. And then he was gone.

 **1963**

"What did I ever do to deserve you?" he murmured, nuzzling at her throat, leaving tiny bite marks along her collar bone. His voice was wistful, almost reverent. His stubble stung the soft skin at the base of her throat. She ignored it.

"Don't leave me. Tell me you'll come back," she said, arching into his touch. There was a note of desperation in her voice that she refused to acknowledge.

"Magda." He said her name like it choked him on the way out. Like it was a prayer and a benediction all wrapped into one. "I must." He took her hand and brought it to his lips, enclosing her palm in both of his larger ones. She felt a warm wetness on his face, but said nothing. Somehow, deep within, she knew that nothing she said would change his mind. "There are lives at stake. Hundreds…thousands of lives. Innocent lives. Mutant lives. I have to go. I have to help them."

"Then at least _tell_ me where you're going. Take me with you." Her eyes stung, but she refused to cry. She wouldn't. Not until she'd had her answers. "Magnus," she touched his cheek. " _Please._ "

His voice was jagged, fraying at the edges. "I can't."

"Why?" she demanded fiercely, turning to face him. "Because I'm human? You can't trust me because of what I am?"

A sigh of defeat. "Because I _love_ you. And I…I can't lose you. Not you too..." He had buried his face into the crook of her neck, and her fingers worked almost involuntarily through the lush strands of his hair. It was intoxicating. "And I can't trust myself not to turn around and leave it all behind if…if I had to choose. And I can't do that Magda. Not even for you. Not again..."

 **1963 (a few months later)**

The place looked more like a medieval castle than a school. Not that Magda was complaining, of course. After everything, the secluded and fortified aura of the structure was almost comforting. She rubbed a hand over her satin-covered belly and knocked. Firmly. Twice. Her lips parted to draw the cool autumn air into her lungs. Well, there was no going back now.

As if being pregnant wasn't bad enough, she had to be pregnant with twins. Mutant twins, if the strange uniformed men who kept following her creepily around were to be believed. Not that that was a problem, of course. The mutant part wasn't, at least. Not in her book. That was to be expected, all things considered. The being followed around by creepy uniformed men who kept muttering ominously about 'mutant spawn' and 'The Colonel', on the other hand? Now that _was_ a problem. A major problem.

Which was really the main reason she was here in the first place. Of course, finding Magnus would have been the ideal solution to that particular problem. But the father of her children seemed to have melted away like snow in the summer. Vanished off the face of the planet like he had never existed.

So this 'Professor', whoever he was, would have to do. For now, anyway.

The magnificent, intricately carved double doors cracked open. A single dark eye peered out. Then they opened some more, and a tall, chocolate skinned young man stood before her. With a slight frown, he gazed into her face, as if trying to read her mind. Hell, for all she knew he was doing just that. It was kind of unnerving.

Then his eyes slid down to the bulge of her belly.

"I…um. How may I help you ma'am?" the young man asked, pulling the door all the way open and stepping aside. Giving her room to enter the house, the mansion, if she so chose.

"I need to see the Professor. Um…Professor Xavier?" she said, checking the newspaper cut-out in her hand.

"Yes?" said a soft voice from somewhere further inside. A young man on a wheelchair rolled into the vestibule, wearing a tweed coat over a loose beige cardigan and looking more like a hapless graduate student than any kind of a professor. Magda's eyebrows twitched upwards. "I'm Charles Xavier," he smiled affably. "What can I do for you?"

Magda was seated on the plushest couch that her backside had ever had the privilege of touching, and she felt more comfortable than she had in a very long time. She forced herself to keep her eyes open.

The inordinately youthful professor...what was it he had called himself? Charles. Charles Xavier. Of course. Xavier was gazing at her with earnest concern, his head tilted to one side. She tried to focus on him. She didn't remember the last time she had been so sleepy.

"But how do you know…why do you think your children will be mutants?" Charles was asking, his voice soft and indistinct.

"Well, 'coz their father was, I s'pose. A very powerful one at that. And the uniformed men I told you about keep muttering about some Stryker wanting them for experimenting on mutants. Guess that wouldn't be the case if they weren't mutants now, would it?"

Xavier stiffened. "Stryker? Do you mean Colonel Stryker?"

"I s'pose," Magda shrugged. "They do call him 'The Colonel' sometimes."

"I see," Xavier pressed his lips together, seemingly lost in thought. He was kind of cute, Magda supposed. If you went for the nerdy, bookish type. Not that Magda did, personally. "And this…um, their father. You said he was a mutant? Do you, ah, can you tell me his name? Do you know what kind of a mutant he was? Had you ever seen him using his powers?"

"Sure," Magda nodded, popping the last of the buttery scones into her mouth. They were delicious. She would have to ask Xavier for the recipe. "He was… _is_ a metal bender. Very powerful, as I said. His name is Magnus Eisenhardt."

Xavier's eyes widened, and a flurry of emotions that Magda was too exhausted to discern passed swiftly over his features. Then they were gone, vanishing as quickly as they had appeared. "I see," he said, a faraway look in his eyes that Magda couldn't quite place. Then, seeming to catch himself, he focused back on her and smiled apologetically. "Well, welcome to our school, Miss Maximoff."

 **1964**

The study was cozy and warm. The fire cackled invitingly as Magda sat on the plush armchair near the hearth. She thought it might be an antique, her chair. Then again, on second thought, almost everything in this room probably was. Even the old metallic chess set that sat abandoned in the far corner of the room. She didn't know why, but seeing that old set always made her feel a vague sense of loss.

Little Wanda giggled on her lap, trying to swallow her index finger.

"They're feisty tonight, aren't they?" Charles laughed, holding Pietro up on his lap. The little boy's fingers zapped haphazardly in front of Charles's face. Her son was manifesting early, Charles said. He seemed sure that Wanda was a mutant too, though apparently a late bloomer. After everything she had seen him do over the past few months, Magda was inclined to trust his judgement where mutant tykes were concerned.

"Well, that's one way of putting it," she grinned, sipping at her tea. God, what she wouldn't give for something strong and alcoholic. But apparently red wine was not something nursing mothers were supposed to indulge in. And Charles was kind enough to never drink anything but tea in her presence, lest he tempt her to throw caution to the wind and down one just for the heck of it. "It was a miracle Pietro didn't zap Ororo's hair right off her skull this morning, poor girl. He's turning into a right little monster, this son of mine."

Charles giggled at the memory. "He'll settle down. They all do, eventually. Not that they're usually this young when they get here. You did good in class today, by the way."

"I did though, didn't I?" Magda grinned proudly. "Never thought of myself as a teacher before I got here. Guess they were onto something when they said that time teaches everything."

Charles smiled warmly. "I'm really very grateful for all your help around here, Miss Maximoff. Ah, I mean Magda," he corrected swiftly as she glared at him. "I'm hoping we won't be so excruciatingly short-staffed come next year." Pietro squealed, and Charles rocked him awkwardly in his arms. Magda hid her grin behind a dainty hand.

"Well, you bettern't be. I wouldn't be around to save your pretty little ass if you were, Professor."

Charles frowned. "What do you mean?"

Magda sighed, sobering. "I can't just stay here forever Charles, you know that. I…I love this place. Love all of you with all my heart…" she choked back a sob that rose unbidden to her throat. Really, it was a habit she needed to break, tearing up at the most inopportune moments. "But I'll never fit in here. Not really."

Charles looked agitated. "That's not true–"

Magda smiled. "Take a breath Charles. Your ears are turning red. I'm not saying you'll treat me any differently because of what I am. 'Cause I'm human. I wouldn't leave my darling babies with you if I thought you were some kind of psycho supremacist about to turn them into little mutant Hitlers," she laughed. Charles's shoulders relaxed somewhat and he smiled down at little Pietro curled up in his lap. Wanda was already sound asleep in Magda's.

"But despite all your efforts, Charles, the fact remains that I _am_ human. And nobody else in this house is–"

"I could hire other non-mutant teachers next semester–"

Magda held up a hand. "You could. And you could do a thousand other things, which I have no doubt that you _would_ do if I let you. But none of it would change the fact that I would still be an outsider." She leaned forward, careful not to disturb her sleeping daughter. "Listen to me, Charles. Wanda and Pietro…they're the best thing that has ever happened to me. But…but I'm not ready yet. To be a parent. To be a mother. To be responsible for the health and wellbeing of two little humans. Much less to help them deal with their mutant powers and all that other stuff," she waved her hand, then sighed. "God, I must sound like such a horrible person, saying these things."

"No you don't. You sound…" Charles smiled. "Human. And I mean that in the best possible way."

Magda released a breath she hadn't known she was holding. Since when did Charles's opinion of her start mattering so much, anyway? She guessed it was the whole professor vibe he gave off. You couldn't help but want to be in his good books. It was really kind of annoying.

"I'll come back. Anytime you need me. Anytime they…" she looked down at Wanda, bit her lip. Then continued. " _If_ they ever need me."

Charles sighed. Wrapped a hand around Pietro and settled him more securely on his thigh. "You're their mother, Magda. They'll _always_ need you. No matter what."

Magda looked into his eyes to check for any signs of deception. For once, she wished _she_ was the telepath in the room. Her voice shook as she uttered the next words. "You promise?"

Charles dipped his head, dark hair falling into his sparkling eyes. "I promise."

 **1966**

There was a tiny little storm cloud brewing over the heads of a couple of boys running after a ball. One of them sported wide, webbed feet and wore no shoes. The other one seemed to be floating a couple of inches above the ground every few steps. A white haired girl stood a few feet away from them, guarding what might have been a makeshift goal-post constructed from bamboo sticks.

Emma Frost made herself invisible to the children and moved further into the grounds, walking steadily towards the stately mansion standing in the middle of all the greenery. The bundle in her arms squirmed and moaned and she glanced down at it. It was drooling on her arm. She sighed mentally. Toddler management was _not_ her forte.

 _Miss Frost._ Said a soft, professorial voice in her head, sounding wary and intrigued in equal measure. _Welcome to the school. What brings you here?_

 _Let me in, Xavier._ As she approached the mansion, Emma's pace quickened. And if her tone was a little brusquer than was necessarily called for, well, after twenty-four straight hours of babysitting, Emma felt that she had earned the right. _I am not getting drooled on by your sister's ungodly spawn a moment longer than I have to._

 _My sister's…_ The voice trailed off as the large mahogany double doors swung open to let her in. Emma looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone in the vicinity. Since when had Xavier developed telekinesis in addition to his freakishly strong telepathy?

 _Technology, Miss Frost,_ the telepath reassured her calmly. _My study, if you please_. A clear map of the path leading to Xavier's study floated into her mind. Emma was vaguely impressed. Xavier communicated as flawlessly in images as he did in words.

 _Why thank you, Miss Frost_. There was a tinge of amusement in the man's mental voice, and Emma imagined a peacock puffing out his feathers. She could feel Xavier laughing. It somehow made the day seem a little brighter than before.

 _All this babysitting is driving me mad,_ she informed him.

The study, when she finally stepped into it, did not surprise her at all. It was exactly the kind of place she would have expected Xavier to inhabit – bright, wood panelled, cosily furnished and full of books.

"Living up to your stereotype with panache, I see." She took the seat across from Xavier and settled the drooling little tyke on one knee.

"Coming from you, I consider that a compliment," her companion smiled, giving her pristine outfit a cursory onceover. "Tea, Miss Frost?"

"How can I say no when you ask so nicely?"

Xavier poured her a cup of impeccably brewed Assam. Then he looked curiously down at the blue-skinned, yellow eyed, drooling demon spawn on her knee and raised a delicate eyebrow. "You were saying something about my sister and her…ah–"

"Spawn," Emma provided, taking a sip of the truly delicious beverage in her cup. She closed her eyes. "I could get used to this."

"Spawn, yes. You were saying?"

"That I refuse to be drooled on by it a second longer than necessary, in essence. Feel free to take it off my person whenever the mood strikes."

A toddler-sized blur zapped into the room and crash landed on Charles's lap. Behind it trundled in a similarly sized red-haired bundle of oversized pajamas. As Emma watched, Xavier leaned forward and pulled her up onto his knee, settling her on the one not already occupied by the boy. "As you can see, Miss Frost, I'm, ah, already booked at the moment."

Emma raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Aren't they a bit young for school? Cradle robbing for students doesn't become you, Professor."

"Well," Xavier said, his gaze returning to the little monster still inhabiting Emma's lap. "I could ask _you_ the same question."

Lifting two fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose, Emma sighed. "Why don't you, then?"

Quite impassively, Xavier listened to her talk about Kurt. About Mystique's unexpected pregnancy. About the birth of her son over a year ago. About their slipshod attempts at keeping him alive through all the violence and fighting. About his sister's injury on a mission gone wrong less than a week ago. And about the impossibility of raising a child amidst the constant violence, chaos and uncertainty that was the Brotherhood's domain of expertise.

"How is she now…Raven?" Charles asked at length, covering for the hitch in his voice with a sip of his already-cooling tea.

It did not escape Emma's notice that he had not called her by her assumed name. "She'll live." Then, seeing the forlorn look on his face, she relented. Despite popular opinion, she did have a functional heart buried in there somewhere. "It was a serious wound, but nothing…permanent. The bullet missed all of her vital organs, fortunately. She'll recover fully within a few months, more or less."

Xavier nodded, his shoulders sagging infinitesimally. Not for the first time, Emma wondered where she would be now if any member of her extended biological family had given half as much of a fuck about her as Charles seemed to, about a girl who had tried to steal food from his kitchen years ago.

"If you don't mind," he said at length, clearing his throat awkwardly. "May I ask…ah, who the father is?"

"Azazel."

Emma could see the wheels turning in Xavier's head as he matched the name to the face of the mutant who had taken them from the beach all those years ago. Taken them, and left him and his would-be X-Men to fend for themselves on the beach, surrounded by American and Russian warships. "Things change, Professor."

Xavier smiled wistfully. "Don't I know it, Miss Frost?"

Minutes passed with neither of them breaking the tenuous silence. Sean bustled in eventually to shoo the children – they were apparently twins – out for 'dinner and bed', stopping to give Emma a rather impressive stink-eye on his way out.

"Well," Emma said at last, looking down at the now snoozing toddler on her lap. "Will you take him?"

Xavier closed his eyes and leaned back, a corner of his lips quirking upward. "You wouldn't be here, Miss Frost, had you thought for a moment that I wouldn't."

"Quite true. Was I mistaken in my assumption, then?"

Charles looked up at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought. "No, Miss Frost. You were not."

"Emma."

He focused back on her, and she raised an eyebrow in return. "I'm not your homeroom teacher, Xavier. The formality gets old after a while."

"Charles, then." He held out his hands, and she passed little Kurt over to him. He held the child with the grace of one long practiced in the fine art of toddler-care.

"Wealth and privilege have kept you from your true calling, Charles. You were born to be a nanny."

He laughed, letting the child nibble serenely on his little finger. "You are not the first person to have told me that, funnily enough." A sigh escaped his lips. "Where _is_ Erik, Emma? I have been trying to get in touch with him for…what? Almost two years now. And to no avail. There are things I need to speak to him about. Where on earth is he?"

The earnest blue eyes gazing hopefully at her almost made Emma wish she could tell him. She threw up every mental shield she had and reinforced them twice over, just in case. "That is not…information I'm at liberty to reveal."

"I see."

"I could take a message, if you want," she said at length, seeing the other telepath's face fall. Emma wondered if Charles knew how easy he was to read. It wasn't possible that he didn't, really. He _could_ read minds, after all.

For a moment, Charles gazed speculatively at her, head tilted slightly to one side. Then he shook his head, a tiny movement. "Even if I wanted to, it isn't my secret to reveal."

Emma would have given quite a lot to know whose it was, if not his. "I see," she said instead.

 **1967**

Charles put the receiver down and ran a hand through his hair. Well, what was he supposed to do now? Not that that was anything more than a rhetorical question. He knew exactly what he had to do. There was nothing for it but to go to the bloody hospital and see for himself what new mischief his step-brother had gotten up to now.

The first time Cain had called him was back when they were still at Oxford, him and Raven. He folded his hands on the desk before him and forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat that thinking of those times always seemed to bring about, even now. He had to focus.

The first time Cain had called – and God only knew where he had managed to get their number – it had been about money. In that Cain had needed it, and Charles had been expected to provide it. Charles had been all but ready to hang up on his childhood tormentor, but something about the sheer desperation in Cain's half-intoxicated voice had stopped him. Charles hadn't required his telepathy to know that something very bad was going to happen if Cain didn't get what he needed, and soon.

In the end, it was more a concern for what Cain might _do_ , than what might be done _to_ him, that had prompted Charles to send the money to the address his step brother had blabbered into the phone.

The second time Cain had called, it had been about money again. This time, though, the request had been delivered with what might pass for sobriety in some circles, along with a vague promise to pay the money back as soon as possible.

The third time had been a couple of weeks before Cuba, and all that Cain asked for was legal advice about some minor misdemeanour or other.

The fourth time had been a week after Charles had lost the use of his legs, and he had been in no position to offer either advice or monetary assistance. Cain had spoken to him for exactly twenty minutes anyway.

And so they had established a pattern. One phone call every month. Sometimes, when Cain got himself into more trouble than he could handle on his own, there'd be two. And that was the end of that.

Until the latest phone call, of course. Not from Cain, but from some hospital in Pittsburgh that claimed to have in their care a half-dead Cain Marko. A half-dead Cain Marko who had apparently had Charles Xavier listed as his primary emergency contact.

Charles wondered if he should be touched or aghast by that kind of unwarranted trust.

Hospital rooms still made Charles vaguely uncomfortable. The muted colours and the scent of antiseptic reminded him of the weeks after Cuba. The weeks he had spent getting used to the fact that he couldn't walk anymore. Would never walk again. And the fact that that wasn't even close to being his greatest loss.

Cain had tubes and wires attached to almost every part of his body. And the parts that didn't have wires had bandages. He was alert, though. And he recognized Charles the moment he rolled into the room. Which, considering the number of years since they had seen each other, was in itself more than Charles had hoped for.

"You have a knack for attracting bad company, don't you?" Cain snickered, glancing down at the wheelchair. Then he wheezed, the words apparently too much for his overtaxed lungs.

Charles raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you're in a position to be passing judgement on my life choices right now."

Cain snickered again, sipping on the glass of water the nurse handed him. "Fair enough."

"What happened?" Charles asked, positioning himself next to the bed. He signalled for Darwin to wait outside the room and after a moment's hesitation, the young man left them alone.

Cain closed his eyes and leaned back. "Read my mind, why don't you?"

"I'm sorry?"

Cain shrugged. "It's kind of a long story. And," he pointed at himself. "Not exactly in the best condition for long stories at the moment. 'Sides, it's not the kind of thing you'd believe if I told you anyway."

Charles sighed. "I don't need to read your mind to trust you, Cain."

Cain looked him straight in the eyes and gritted out, "And I don't need you to trust me. I need you to _do something_."

For a minute, Charles held the other man's gaze. Cain wasn't lying, or at least didn't think he was. That would have to do for the moment. With a brief nod, Charles dove in.

When he finally emerged, Charles felt as though somebody had kicked him in the gut.

"Who were they?" he asked, and he barely recognized his own voice. "Do you have their names?

"I have a list," Cain grinned, all sharp edges and jagged corners.

"Good. You're coming with me. We need a plan."

"Where to, Chuck?"

"Why," Charles smiled, letting a hint of genuine mirth creep onto his features. "Home, of course."

In the end they rescued twenty children, and brought two of them back to the mansion. The only two that didn't have tearful parents eagerly awaiting their return in various parts of the country.

Remy was four, Kitty seven. Both were malnourished and looked at least a couple of years younger than their chronological age.

"We're gonna have to fix that," Sean told the cook, with Remy on his shoulders and Kitty hiding behind his legs.

Charles smiled, before getting dragged off to referee a wrestling match between Scott and Ororo.

"Thank you," he murmured to Cain, who was already there, leaning on his crutches and teaching Bobby how to execute a perfect backflip.

His stepbrother smirked. "Don't mention it, Charlie."

 **1969**

They had been arguing for the last twenty minutes. Mystique was sure that if Erik could use his powers in this room, the entire building would be nothing but a pile of rubble by now. As it was, Magneto all but shook with barely repressed fury.

"What did you think you would achieve, Charles, by keeping my children from me?" he sneered, all but spitting the words out like verbal projectiles in the telepath's direction. And if Charles's expression was anything to go by, they had not missed their target. "Did you think you could use them to control me, after all your other tactics had failed?"

Alex snarled. "We weren't _keeping_ anything from you, you self-righteous bastard! We tried to contact you, to inform you, over and over again. And we could never manage it. You'd vanished off the face of the planet. Vanished so completely your girlfriend had to come to _us_ for protection from Stryker because she couldn't bloody _find_ you when she needed you. Surprise surprise!"

Magneto growled and launched himself at Alex, but was stopped by one of Sean's ear-piercing screams before he could reach his target. Before he had fully recovered from that acoustic assault, Emma had her hand over his shoulder in a vice-like grip that dug into the folds of his jacket. "Enough."

Erik's face split into a smile that would have scared the living daylights out of a killer shark. "Indeed, it _is_ enough. It is time I claimed what was mine. I'll leave, and I'll take my children with me. Do what I should have done years ago."

"That," Emma said calmly, letting her grip slacken just a fraction. "Would be a mistake."

Erik whirled on her so fast it made Raven's eyes cross. "What did you say?" he all but whispered into her ear.

"I said," Emma answered unperturbed, looking unflinchingly into Erik's eyes. "That removing your children from the school would be a mistake. They are children, not soldiers. They have no business being at a military camp. And that is precisely what we are, Magneto. It is what you have made us, what you want us to be. Soldiers. Warriors. And a battlefield is no place for a child to be."

For a few moments, they just stared at each other, Erik almost vibrating with rage and defiance while Emma gazed calmly, yet firmly back at him, her hand still planted on his shoulder.

The stalemate was finally broken by Charles. "It's time to leave. We can finish this conversation back home," her brother's voice said, having regained some of its customary serenity and composure.

Erik jerked back to look at Charles, seemingly forgetting about Emma as Charles turned back towards the doorway. "I want to see my children." It was a demand, forceful and uncompromising. But hidden somewhere beneath the layers of antagonism and hostility, Raven thought she heard the vestiges of a plea. She knew in that moment that Erik would beg, if need be, for his children. Without knowing them, he already loved them.

Charles looked at his former friend for less than a second. Then he inclined his head. "Of course. You can come with us to the school, if you please."

They had been at the mansion for less than two whole days. Raven – and she _was_ Raven now. Not Mystique; not Magneto's second-in-command; simply Raven – had barely spent five minutes of that time away from Kurt. She loved everything about her son, couldn't get enough of him. She couldn't remember a time when she had felt as effortlessly content as she did in his presence.

Kurt had taken a few hours to warm up to her. _He's a shy kid_ , Hank had said reassuringly.

And Raven had faced down death and mayhem with far less trepidation than she had felt during those short hours that had seemed to last for years.

But eventually, he _had_ smiled at her. Had held his little arms wide open to be pulled into her lap. And Raven had felt the weight of the world lifted off her shoulders.

She could only imagine what Erik was feeling. While she had been keenly aware, all these years, of what she was missing, he hadn't even known that he had anything to miss.

"Catch!" Kurt yelped, throwing the soft rubber ball at her and dragging her out of her ruminations. Raven extended a casual hand to catch the object flying sedately in her direction and prepared to throw it at Kitty, who was standing a few feet to the left of Kurt.

That was when she saw him. Walking across the lawn with a sickle in his hand and a brown-haired little boy on his shoulder. He walked beside Darwin, laughing at some joke that Raven was too far away to hear. Not that she wanted to.

All that she wanted to do at the moment was to get Cain Marko as far away from her son, her family, as she possibly could. All she wanted to do was to see him pay for what he had done to her all those years ago, what he and his father had done to _them_.

Before she had had a chance to process or analyse her own actions, she stood in front of Cain, the game abandoned behind her. " _You!_ What are you doing here?"

For a moment, Cain's eyes widened and he took a single step back, away from her, as if seeing a ghost from an old nightmare. Then he recovered, and a lopsided grin split his puffy face in two. "Ah, if it's not little sister. Look who's flown back to the coop." He put the boy down and shooed him off in the direction of the other children before turning to face her fully. Standing almost between them, Darwin looked confused and more than a little unsettled, but quite determined not to leave the two of them alone.

"How _dare_ you?!" Raven snarled, too busy glaring at Cain to spare a thought for anyone else in the vicinity. "After all that you did, how _dare_ you come back to this house again!" Had they not been surrounded by children, Raven was sure she would have attacked him.

Cain smirked, and the expression made her skin crawl. It was like all the years had melted away and she was six again, cowering behind a ten-year-old Charles as Cain loomed over them both with that malicious little smile on his lips.

Cain was saying something, and it took Raven a moment to pull herself back from the past to pay attention to his words. "Why, I'm the groundskeeper of this fine institution, Miss. Here by special invitation of the Headmaster himself."

In that moment, Raven would have given her right arm to be able to wipe that smug grin right off his face. "I will _kill_ you," she hissed at him.

"Raven," said a soft, cool voice behind her. The goddamn voice she would recognize anywhere in the universe. "Please, just–"

She whirled on him, cutting him off before he could begin to lay out his excuses. "How _could you_ , Charles? How could _you_ bring him _here_ , into what you pretend to call a school! Into a house full of children! What could possibly have compelled you to _invite_ a sadistic bully into this house? Into the place you call a safe haven for mutants!"

"The fact that he has changed, perhaps? That he has helped us in the past when we needed it?" Charles said, tiredly but firmly. He rolled closer to the little group that had gathered around Cain, forcing Raven to look down at him on his wheelchair. It wasn't the first time she had seen her brother since Cuba, of course. But it _was_ the first time that they had been placed in such close physical proximity. The first time they had held a conversation that wasn't across the length and breadth of a rubble-laden battlefield. It was disorienting, to say the least.

Then Charles raised an eyebrow in that superior, arrogant way of his and Raven's temper flared, her blood boiling in her veins. "Changed?! Cain Marko?" She sneered. "You're even more delusional than Magneto says you are, Charles, if you really believe that. The likes of him can never change."

"The likes of _me_?" Cain said. His tone was surprisingly calm, though he had pushed his huge shoulders back and was standing a little straighter than before. Raven wondered momentarily if Charles was pacifying him mentally, forcing him to behave. Before she could scrutinize him further, however, he spoke again: "And what would _that_ be like, I wonder? Because whatever asshattery I might have pulled as a fucked up kid twenty years ago, I don't believe _I_ ever left my brother to bleed out on a beach while I buggered off to play rebel with some dude in a fancy helmet."

Raven barely recognized the guttural sound that escaped her lips before she launched herself at Cain. She would wring his thick, muscular neck with her bare hands, if she had to.

" _That's enough_!" Charles's voice rang throughout the grounds as he all but inserted himself – wheelchair and all – between her and Cain. Time seemed to stop as he glared at them both. "That will be enough. There are _children_ here, all around you. This is neither the place nor the time. Cain, Raven – get back into the house immediately. I'll be there in a moment." Then, he wheeled towards the little circle of kids that was watching them from the shadows of the peripheral trees.

Later, Raven would marvel at the fact that it never occurred to her, even once, to disobey her brother. At the moment, however, her mind was too busy dissecting every word that Cain had said to pay much attention to anything else.

She turned around and stormed off in the direction of her room.

She had procrastinated long enough. Raven sighed into the steaming cup of tea in her hand. She had made it just the way Charles liked it. Or at least, just the way he used to, over seven years ago. It was strange, in a way, being in this house and not knowing exactly where everything was. Not knowing what her brother's favourite tea was. Not knowing who he even was, anymore. Not really. It was not a feeling Raven was accustomed to, and she didn't think she liked it.

The afternoon classes had ended over two hours ago, and Hank said Charles would be in his study. It was not a conversation she was looking forward to. But she knew it was one they needed to have.

Kurt and Wanda sat on Charles's lap, munching on cookies. Pietro sat with Remy on top of Charles's paper-strewn desk, his mouth covered in crumbs. Kitty, Ororo and Scott were seated a few feet away on a settee by the fireplace, half-eaten cookies clutched in their hands.

Over the years, Raven had become accustomed to seeing her brother's study littered with a great number of interesting and alarming things. She had never thought she would see it littered with children.

She wondered momentarily where Magneto was, before remembering Hank dragging a grumbling Erik off to fix some glitch in the new Cerebro. Perhaps Hank had really needed Magneto's help, but she thought he was just being kind, making it easier for her.

Charles seemed to sense her arrival – or he might have known she was coming before she knew it herself. Raven shook her head. There was no point in going down that well-trodden path again. Her brother stopped the story he had been telling the children and smiled up at her. It was a genuine smile, she could tell. She couldn't begin to imagine why, but he was happy to see her.

"Ah, Raven. Do come in. We'll be finished in a moment." He waved her inside.

She walked obediently in and placed the steaming tea set in front of him. His smile brightened as he wrapped his fingers around the warm china of the teacup, and it warmed something inside of her that she thought had died a long time ago. The sense of déjà vu made her throat clench in an involuntary spasm of nostalgia, forcing her to look away.

They were finally alone by the time Charles offered her a leftover cookie. A million quips sprung to her lips as she extended a hand to accept it. Biting her lip, she swallowed them back. It was a privilege she had forfeited on that beach seven years ago.

She watched Charles as she nibbled on her cookie. Really _looked_ at her brother in God only knew how long. There were fine crow's feet around his eyes and a little silver in the perpetually overgrown mess of his hair. But apart from that he looked almost exactly like she remembered him. Like an exquisitely crafted porcelain doll come to life.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Charles turned from the window to squint at her, looking taken aback. "What for?"

There was nothing for it now but to let it all out. "What Cain said–"

"He was out of line."

"He was," her lips quirked upward and she looked down at her hands, which were folded tightly on her lap. "And I'd gladly break his nose the first chance I get."

"Raven–"

"But he was also right," she cut him off. Glanced up to look him in the eye, to make sure he knew she meant what she was saying. Not that that would be an issue for Charles if he didn't want it to be. But something told her he wasn't reading her mind at the moment. Hadn't read her mind since they had returned to the mansion.

Charles sighed. "That was the past, Raven. A long time ago. It doesn't matter anymore–"

"Yes it does," she retorted. And she was back at the kitchen, arguing with her brother about identity and acceptance. And love. She didn't know why talking to Charles always made her feel this way. Made her want to take him by the shoulders and shake him and make him stop being so goddamn _reasonable_ all the time. She sucked in a breath and pressed her lips together, trying to calm her racing heart. "Yes it _does._ I-I don't regret going with Magneto, Charles. I don't. I would do it again, if I had to. I'd make the same choice I did all those years ago, because it _was_ the right one. I haven't stopped believing that."

Charles flinched. It was minute, almost imperceptible. To anyone else, it would have been. But she wasn't anyone else. Despite everything, she _was_ still Charles's sister. And, even now, she knew her brother inside out.

"But I do regret leaving you on that beach, Charles," Raven said, and it was like tearing a bit of her soul out from inside her chest. She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. "God, what I wouldn't give to be able to go back. To be able to do it right, this time. To be able to say that I didn't abandon my brother, my only friend, to the mercy of enemy warships because I was too much of a damned idiot to be able to see past my own self-pity." She laughed, but there was no humour in it. She felt a single tear make its way down her cheek and into the hollow of her throat.

"Raven," Charles said but she couldn't let him stop her. Not now. She had to get it out because she didn't know if she would have another chance.

"I regret leaving you when you needed me the most. I regret betraying you, although I didn't know that was what I was doing at the time. And I–" she choked back a sob and forced herself to continue. "I regret not telling you any of this until now. Until I had to. I regret being too much of a coward to even try to make things right between us. God Charles, I'm so sorry."

The silence stretched for a few seconds before she gathered the courage to look at the telepath again. Charles sat perfectly still, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. At any other time, she would have patted herself on the back for leaving Charles Xavier at a loss for words.

This wasn't any other time, though. She left her seat and folded herself in front of his chair, taking both his hands into her own. She took a deep breath and tried to find the words to say what she meant. "I'm not asking for forgiveness, Charles. Even from you, that would be too much to ask for. And I'm done asking permission to do the things I want to do. The things I need to do.

"I don't know how I'll do it. Not like there's a manual for this sort of thing. But I _will_ make things right between us again. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many times I mess up. I _will_ make it right. I _will_ be the sister that you deserve, and the mother that Kurt needs. I'm done running away from my family, from being who I am." She bit her trembling lips, and felt another tear trickle past them. "I will make this right, Charles."

Charles smiled softly, squeezing her blue hands in his own paler ones. "If anyone can do it, my dear, it's you."

Pietro zapped past Kitty to get to the ball Remy had shot into the basket with preternatural force. He reached the basket moments before the ball had passed through it, blocking the way and slapping the ball out to his right. Before it could roll away, however, little Kurt appeared out of a portal to Pietro's side and caught the falling ball, throwing it back into the basket. A joyous cheer rose into the cool morning air even as the scoreboard automatically recorded the new tally. From the side-lines, Charles blew his whistle and clapped his hands, signalling snack-time. The children gathered around him, and were handed cakes, cookies and fruit-juice by Sean.

Erik couldn't help but smile as he watched the scene through the window of his room. It was the childhood he had left behind in his parents' backyard in Germany. The life he had dreamed of ever since. And yet a life he had never dared to hope for. Not for himself, at least.

Wanda and Pietro. His children. His blood. In a way, it hurt him to look at them. Wanda had Edie's eyes, her smile. And when Pietro wasn't zapping about at superhuman speeds, he had Jakob's gait, his exact posture and bearing. It was like Erik had gotten his family back. Had received everything he had ever wanted. And yet, he barely knew them. And he almost didn't think he deserved to.

He wondered where Magda was. He wondered if he should be angry with her, for going away and leaving their children behind. But then, it wasn't as though _he_ was in a position to judge. After all, he was the one who had left her. Left her and their children to the mercy of William Stryker. Erik's blood boiled in his veins, nails digging into the skin of his palm. He barely noticed. Stryker was going to pay for what he had done. If it was the last thing Erik did, he would make sure of that.

Wanda squealed, calling Erik's attention back to the playground. Sean was tossing her into the air as the other children giggled, clambering to go next. For a second, Erik was back on the satellite dish again, pushing Cassidy off the rails even as Charles admonished him in mock horror.

Charles. Erik would have given his soul to know what to do with Charles. How to fill the gaping chasm that had festered between them over the years. Charles, who had taken Magda in when Erik had not been there to protect her; to protect his children. Charles, who had raised Erik's children like his own. Who now had Wanda curled sleepily on his lap even as Pietro encouraged Sean to throw him even higher into the air. Charles, who had been more of a mother and a father to Erik's children than he could ever hope to be.

Erik wished he could put a name to the feeling at the pit of his stomach. But what did you call an undefinable clump of guilt, gratitude and jealousy? It was an emotion without a name, and yet it was tearing him apart.

"He's good with them, isn't he?" Mystique said as she walked up to stand beside him. He had felt the buckles of her belt the moment she stepped onto the floor, but it was still a small relief to hear her voice next to him. They gazed out the window together. "He always was. Always had a way…with children, I mean. Even when he was a kid himself," she laughed. "Makes sense in hindsight, doesn't it? He was born to be a teacher."

For a moment, Erik said nothing. Then she rounded on him. "What are you thinking, Magneto?"

"I'm thinking we need to leave."

Her eyes narrowed. "And leave the children behind? Again?"

He tried to hide the emotions raging under his skin. "Of course not."

Raven said nothing for a moment. Then she turned back to the window. "You're planning to take them away."

Erik said nothing. He didn't need to.

"It would destroy him," she said softly.

"They're not his."

"Aren't they?" She sighed, turned back to look at Erik, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "Tell me you really believe that."

Erik pressed his lips together and looked away. "It doesn't matter what I believe. It is the truth."

"What will you do with them, Magneto?" She had used the title deliberately, and the significance of it wasn't lost on him. "Where will you take them? Where could you possibly take them where they'd be happier, safer than they are here?"

"I'm not–"

"Taking the children away from the school would be a mistake, and you know that just as well as I do. So the question is, what is it that you really want?"

"They can't stay here forever, hiding from the world, hoping they're never found out by the rest of humanity," he snapped. "That's a fool's dream. And they'll all be massacred the moment it's over."

"Perhaps," she looked away. "But the question is, when that happens, _if_ it happens…will you be here to protect them? Or will you be on the other side of the planet, fighting someone else's war as your home burns to the ground?"

Story time in Charles's study was perhaps Erik's favourite time of the day. He had been reluctant to attend at first. But he had been dragged in by the combined forces of Wanda, Pietro and Kurt, who had wanted him to provide details on the story about how Mr. Cassidy had learned to fly.

After that, he was addicted. It was everything he loved in the world encapsulated within the confines of a single fire-lit room. Mutant children – _his_ children – freely flaunting their powers as they enjoyed story time over milk and cookies, basking in each other's company.

And then, of course, there was Charles – ensconced in his metallic throne behind the wide teakwood desk, sipping his tea and commanding the attention of the whole room with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a tiny quirk of his lips. Sometimes, he told the stories. Sometimes he left it to one of the other adults to do so. But there was never any doubt about who was at the centre of the event. Charles seemed to command that position without even trying.

Erik had walked up to the old chess set abandoned in one corner of the room, during one such session. He made a move. He wasn't sure why he did it. Didn't really think anybody would notice the change. Perhaps it was just an innate desire to leave some sort of a mark. Some proof of his presence here.

The next day, somebody had made a counter move. Erik grinned.

"Pietro is doing remarkably well with his control. But that is to be expected, considering how early he manifested. Wanda will take a few years to catch up yet, but will perhaps be even better than her brother when she does." Charles moved his Bishop and took a sip of his tea.

They sat across from each other near the fireplace, the metal chess set laid out between them. It was like the last seven years had never existed.

"It's not just about control, Charles. It's about mastery too. About power." Erik moved his Knight in front of his King.

"Are they so different, my friend?"

Erik smiled, seeing an opening. The telepath was being less careful than usual. He took a sip of his wine. "Aren't they? The ability to prevent damage, I would say, is diametrically opposed to the capacity to cause it." He moved his Queen and took Charles's Bishop.

"Check," Charles smiled, taking Erik's Queen with a pawn positioned strategically behind the Bishop. "And not always. You cannot effectively accomplish the one without managing the other."

Erik's eyes sparkled. "Competitive as ever, I see."

"Would you rather I wasn't?"

Erik looked up to meet his companion's eyes. "Never, Charles," he said with as much honesty as he could manage. "I would never want you to hold back on my account."

Charles looked away. He didn't seem to know how to answer that. The silence stretched for a few seconds and Erik felt his fingers twitch. Perhaps he had had too much to drink. Or perhaps he just wanted to be doing _something_ that wasn't sitting on his hands and staring off into space.

He reached out and took one of Charles's hands in his. He squeezed the delicate fingers between his own larger ones in what might have been interpreted as a friendly gesture, if one was being wilfully obtuse. Then he brought them to his lips and shattered that illusion into a million jagged pieces.

Charles froze.

"I'm sorry," he said after a few seconds of holding Charles's cool fingers against his lips. "I'm so sorry." He wasn't even sure what he was apologising for anymore. He let Charles go.

"Erik," Charles said, leaning forward. "There is nothing to forgive. There never was."

Erik laughed. It was a bitter, broken thing. "No, I suppose not. You cannot forgive the unforgivable, after all."

Charles sighed. "That's not – that's not true and you know it. And for what it's worth, I _do_ forgive you, Erik. I forgave you years ago. I wasn't lying about that. There really isn't anything that you need to apologize for anymore. Not to me, at least."

"Then why?"

Charles closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. "Because forgiveness is not a reset button, my friend. Just because–" he opened his eyes to meet Erik's. "Just because I forgive you doesn't mean that we can just pick up where we left off seven years ago. That's not how it works."

"Then tell me how it does?" Erik said. Almost pleaded. Subconsciously mirroring Charles's pose, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and gazed earnestly at his former friend and lover. "Tell me how it's supposed to work, Charles, and I promise you I'll do everything in my power to make it happen. Tell me what I have to do to earn your trust again. To earn a place in my children's lives. To be the father that they need; that they deserve."

Charles looked stricken. Like Erik had hit him across the face with everything he had.

He looked away and closed his eyes again, almost as if to shut out the world against the pain. Then his lips quirked into a wry little smile that made Erik's heart ache, although he didn't know why.

Charles looked down at his hands, which were folded primly on his lap. But when he spoke his voice was brittle, as though moments away from breaking. "You don't–" He stopped. Tried again. "You don't need to _seduce_ me to be close to your children, Erik. To have a place in their lives. You might believe me to be a monster, my friend, but I have never tried to keep your children away from you. And I never will, regardless of whether we are friends, enemies or neither. Your children will _always_ be yours, no matter what. And that's a promise." When he looked up, his eyes were bright, his face carefully blank.

"And so this," he flexed his fingers experimentally, as if feeling them for the first time in years. "Whatever it is, is completely unnecessary. I assure you."

"Charles…" Erik all but gaped at the telepath, who was already rolling out of the study. He was too shocked to be able to formulate a coherent response to anything Charles had said.

"Have a good night, my friend," Charles murmured. And then he was gone.

Charles ran his fingers – almost reverently – over the frayed cover of the ancient tome. He couldn't begin to imagine where Erik had managed to acquire it. It was an early 19th century treatise on genetic mutation. On the x-gene. Perhaps the first book ever published on the subject. First edition, because a second had never come out.

He sighed. Put the book back down on his desk, carefully. _We need to talk._ He sent the thought floating in Erik's general direction. He had to be careful to not accidentally read the surface thoughts on the metal-bender's mind. But Erik was only here, in Charles's vicinity without his helmet, because of his children. And he had promised he wouldn't take advantage of that. Wouldn't do anything to keep Erik from his family.

And Charles couldn't stand to break that promise. To really become the monster that Erik thought he was.

Erik walked into the study a few minutes later, an innocent expression pasted on his face. "You called?"

Charles gestured at the book. "Thank you."

Erik looked at the book. Then at Charles. Finally, he inclined his head just a fraction of an inch in acknowledgement.

"Where did you get it?"

A sardonic little smile. "Believe me, you don't want to know."

Charles couldn't help the answering smile that rose unbidden to his lips. "Okay. So whose idea was it then?"

"Who do you think? Hank, of course. He said you've been looking for this one for months."

"And so I have. I take it the mousse cake was Wanda's idea."

Erik nodded. "She said it was your favourite."

"It is. I think the only person in the world who likes it more than me is Wanda."

Erik laughed. "Figures. Well, Mystique came up with the Harris Tweed blazer. I think we can safely say that there was no self-interest _there_."

Charles smiled, then bit his lip. With every fiber of his body, he wanted to believe it. To keep it. To hold on to it with both his hands and never let go.

But he couldn't. It wasn't fair. To Erik, to himself, or to the children.

"What are you doing, Erik?"

"Feeding, clothing and educating you; if current trends are anything to go by."

Charles snorted. "Fair enough. So the question is, why?"

Erik shrugged, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Does there have to be a reason?"

"There's _always_ a reason, with you."

Erik looked away, gazed out of the window at the cloudy skies beyond. Charles waited. Two could play at this game.

"There's not," he exhaled, tried again. "This isn't some kind of a game, Charles. I'm not trying to win anything. Not even you. Not anymore." Charles wondered if he had imagined the slight hitch in Erik's voice, but dared not interrupt him.

"I left you on that beach. Put a bullet in your spine. Drove a bloody coin through your head." He laughed. It was almost a sob. "You have every right to hate me. God, Charles, I don't know how you can even stand to be near me. And I wouldn't–" he closed his eyes. Looked away. "I would understand, if you could never see me as anything more than a burden you have to bear for the twins' sake. But," He looked back at Charles, forcing the latter to look into his eyes. To see the honest agony in their azure depths. "But I have to _try_ , Charles. I couldn't live with myself, if I didn't. If I let you go again without even _trying_ to hold on."

"The children–" Charles began. But Erik cut him off with a defiant shake of his head.

He folded himself in front of Charles's chair and planted both hands on the armrests. A supplication and a demand – all wrapped into a single gesture. " _This_ is not about the children, Charles. They're my blood. My family. And I love them more than you could begin to imagine. But _this_ is not about them. This is about me. And about you. And about _us_. And you can accept that or reject it. Tell me you never want to be in the same room as me again. And I'll take it. But whatever you do, it has to be because _you_ want it. Not the children. Not your X-Men. This is about what _you_ want."

He pushed himself back to his feet, let go of the chair. Walked over to the door. Moments before leaving, he turned back again. "Tell me, Charles. Do you even remember what that is anymore?"

 **1970**

The party was finally over. Charles could hardly believe it. After all these weeks of planning, plotting and conspiring behind the twins' ever-vigilant backs, the surprise party had been a success. Pietro and Wanda's sixth birthday bash had gone off without a hitch. Well, unless you considered four broken windows and a bunch of shattered glassware to be a hitch, of course.

Charles moved his Rook and sipped his wine. His heart wasn't really in the game tonight. He had a splitting headache from all the sessions on Cerebro over the past week. And he still hadn't figured out how to properly integrate the new kids they had rescued from Trask Labs into the school. They were anxious and paranoid, not to mention severely malnourished. Charles wondered how long it would take before they were ready to start training.

The new Cerebro was more efficient and remarkably faster than the previous version. Charles made a mental note to congratulate Hank the next time he saw him. It also had a significantly wider range, which was how they had located the thirty-odd mutants hidden away in the underground lab, five of them no more than grade-schoolers.

But it was also far more strenuous than the last one had been, and seemed to have more lasting side effects. Or perhaps that was just because Charles had found himself quite unable to leave the machine until all the captives had been freed and the children brought safely home by the X-Men. He had spent more hours with Cerebro over the last week than he had in the previous six months combined. He supposed that was bound to have an effect sooner or later.

He rubbed a hand tiredly over his throbbing temple and almost unseeingly made his next move.

And then the world swayed around him and the last thing he remembered was Erik's alarmed face leaning over him, asking him what was wrong. Charles would have liked to tell him that it was just a spell of dizziness. That it would pass. But his tongue was heavy and it felt like too much of an effort to get the words out. So he just closed his eyes and let the darkness take over.

The first thing Charles was aware of was the fact that he was in motion. The next thing was that somebody had their arms wrapped tightly around him. The third was that that somebody had a really broad and muscular chest, against which Charles was firmly pressed.

Charles put these three disparate data sets together and drew the conclusion that he was in Erik's arms.

"E-Erik," he said groggily, pushing weakly against the man's upper body. "What're you doing?"

"Don't worry, Charles," Erik reassured him solicitously even as he kept walking. "Your virtue is perfectly safe with me. I'm taking you to your room. You blacked out over our game. Plus you have a fever. You're burning up."

He walked through the double doors of the master bedroom and deposited Charles – gently – onto his bed. He pulled the covers over him and then pressed the back of his hand to Charles's forehead. Charles winced. Erik shook his head, straightening. "I'll get you something for the headache and then take your temperature. This can't be good. I feel like I'm touching a furnace."

Erik went over to the drawer where Charles kept the medicine box. Where he had kept the box since before Cuba, when they had shared this room in all but name. Charles wondered what it said about him that his supposed enemy knew all about the layout of his bedroom. Thankfully, he felt too weak for self-recriminations at the moment, so he put that thought in the back of his mind and closed his eyes.

The next thing he knew was that Erik had an arm under his shoulders and was pulling him up into a sitting position. Positioning him against a pillow, he handed Charles a glass and two pills. Then he held the thermometer up like a weapon of war, gazing sternly down at his companion.

Charles swallowed the pills and let Erik position the thermometer in his mouth. He made a listless attempt to take the device but was simply rewarded with an annoyed grunt and a dismissive shake of the head.

"Thank you, my friend," he said finally, as Erik helped him lie back down and pulled two blankets over him.

Erik looked at him, nodded, then looked away. "Goodnight, Charles. I'll be in my room." He tapped his temple, "Call me if you need anything."

Erik turned away just as Charles reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Stay?"

"I…" Erik trailed off, staring at Charles's pale fingers encircling his wrist, wide-eyed.

Charles's lips quirked in an ironic little smile. "Don't worry, Erik. Your virtue is perfectly safe with me. You can take the sofa if you want."

He snorted. "How very generous of you. Not that I would particularly mind having my virtue compromised at the moment." Erik's tone was light, but his eyes had all the intensity of Magneto.

"Okay." Charles tugged lightly on his wrist.

Erik's eyes widened even further. He stilled under Charles's fingers, body going completely rigid.

"I-I'd be willing to give it a try. If you're amenable." Charles looked away.

For a moment, there was absolute silence. It was as if they had both stopped breathing.

Then, Erik laughed. "Amenable," he repeated, letting out a great guffaw that was as much a sigh as a snort. "Amenable, he says."

He leaned forward and brought Charles's hand to his lips. Then he kissed him on the forehead, then the nose and the corners of his mouth. He was like a man lost in a desert, who had finally found his oasis. "God, Charles. I've never been more _amenable_ to anything in my life." He pressed their lips together, gently, and buried his fingers in Charles's hair.

"Is that a yes, then?" Charles asked hesitantly as they came up for air.

Erik touched the side of Charles's face – soft and reverent – and traced a thumb over his lips. Then he leaned forward and brought their lips together in a chaste little kiss that was little more than the brushing of skin on skin. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, his breath warming Charles's face.

"Yes," he whispered. Charles almost had to strain to hear him. "God, Charles. _Yes_."

Charles closed his eyes and smiled softly into Erik's mouth.

 **For the Love of a Child**

 **1969**

Mystique tried to understand, once again, what had gone wrong. She couldn't think clearly. Something about the room made her delirious, unfocused. It was a feeling she wasn't used to; hadn't been for quite a few years now.

Pressed up against the far wall, she tried to gather what was left of her wits and think of a way out. Not that there seemed to be one. To her left, Emma was in her diamond form, unmoving as a bejewelled statue. To her right, Erik stood tense and on edge, an animal cornered and ready to spring. Fists clenched, teeth gritted, he strained futilely against the invisible bonds that held his powers in check.

The room was white, much like the rest of the lab that now lay in smouldering shambles around them. Even now, despite everything, the sight of the twisted cages and smoking bars sent a rush of adrenaline up her veins.

There was something different about this room, though. For one, it had no metal. The walls were panelled with some sort of reflective surface that looked like nothing so much as stainless steel. Unfortunately, its properties were anything but metallic. There was a strange buzzing noise in the background that gave her a headache.

The double doors in front of them were flung wide open, taunting them with freedom. They were flanked on both sides by uniformed guards wearing military camouflage. On the threshold stood Stryker, grinning with that psychotic edge that never seemed too far beneath the surface with him. He held a device that could have passed for a toy gun meant for toddlers. From what she could tell, it was some combination of plastic and rubber. Not the kind of thing that would immediately inspire alarm.

But the bastard held it pointed squarely at Erik's chest. And the easy confidence with which he held himself told her that the device must be lethal. There was a murderous glint in his eye that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on edge.

As imperceptibly as possible, Mystique gathered her strength and prepared to attack, to spring to Erik's defence the moment she saw an opening.

And then it all went to hell. A reverberating, piercing scream rang through the walls just as Stryker's fingers pressed up against the trigger. The men flanking the door dropped like flies. Mystique squinted. What the hell! They were snoring. Sound asleep.

His manic grin faltering, Stryker whipped around, murderous intent momentarily forgotten. A sudden light illuminated the entranceway and the colonel was blasted unceremoniously off his feet and thrown against the far wall, a few feet from Emma.

"Ah, Professor," said Emma, the diamond dissolving naturally around her pristine form.

"Miss Frost." Charles rolled casually into the room, flanked by Darwin, Alex and Sean. Mystique knew now where the scream had come from. And who had blasted Stryker across the room like a weightless rag doll. Which still didn't explain what her brother was doing here, of course.

"It's time to go," Charles said, preparing to turn the chair around. Mystique tried to peer unobtrusively at the man she still couldn't help but think of as her brother, despite everything. If possible, Charles looked even younger and more benign, ensconced in the large metallic contraption of a wheelchair. Oversized cardigan hanging loosely onto his thin frame, dark hair falling into his eyes, he looked almost small, helpless. Mystique wondered if the effect was deliberate. Knowing her brother, it probably was.

"Not until I have killed him!" Erik growled, launching himself at the fallen Stryker before Mystique had managed to get her bearings.

Charles's voice rang out. "Erik no–"

But it was too late. Stryker had shifted from his prone position on the ground and already fired his toy gun at the approaching Magneto.

Erik tried to twist out of the way of the oncoming projectile, only to be pushed aside by Darwin. The reflective bullet hit the younger man, causing angry red cracks to appear along the visible portions of his dark skin.

"Darwin!" Sean yelled, the sound like a million tiny pins pricking Mystique's brain.

But Darwin's skin was already knitting itself back together, the cracks closing to leave no sign of the damage behind but a few fine white lines, like the old scars of long-healed wounds.

The floor shifted under Mystique's feet, and the platform on which Stryker lay began to descend slowly into the ground. Erik snarled. "I _will_ kill you for what you have done here."

Moments before disappearing from sight, Stryker laughed. "What _I_ have done?" he sneered, his tone dripping with malice. "Well _I_ wasn't the one who stole your own children from you, was I Magneto?" For a moment, his hate-filled gaze rested on Charles. And then he was gone.

 **1963**

"What did I ever do to deserve you?" he murmured, nuzzling at her throat, leaving tiny bite marks along her collar bone. His voice was wistful, almost reverent. His stubble stung the soft skin at the base of her throat. She ignored it.

"Don't leave me. Tell me you'll come back," she said, arching into his touch. There was a note of desperation in her voice that she refused to acknowledge.

"Magda." He said her name like it choked him on the way out. Like it was a prayer and a benediction all wrapped into one. "I must." He took her hand and brought it to his lips, enclosing her palm in both of his larger ones. She felt a warm wetness on his face, but said nothing. Somehow, deep within, she knew that nothing she said would change his mind. "There are lives at stake. Hundreds…thousands of lives. Innocent lives. Mutant lives. I have to go. I have to help them."

"Then at least _tell_ me where you're going. Take me with you." Her eyes stung, but she refused to cry. She wouldn't. Not until she'd had her answers. "Magnus," she touched his cheek. " _Please._ "

His voice was jagged, fraying at the edges. "I can't."

"Why?" she demanded fiercely, turning to face him. "Because I'm human? You can't trust me because of what I am?"

A sigh of defeat. "Because I _love_ you. And I…I can't lose you. Not you too..." He had buried his face into the crook of her neck, and her fingers worked almost involuntarily through the lush strands of his hair. It was intoxicating. "And I can't trust myself not to turn around and leave it all behind if…if I had to choose. And I can't do that Magda. Not even for you. Not again..."

 **1963 (a few months later)**

The place looked more like a medieval castle than a school. Not that Magda was complaining, of course. After everything, the secluded and fortified aura of the structure was almost comforting. She rubbed a hand over her satin-covered belly and knocked. Firmly. Twice. Her lips parted to draw the cool autumn air into her lungs. Well, there was no going back now.

As if being pregnant wasn't bad enough, she had to be pregnant with twins. Mutant twins, if the strange uniformed men who kept following her creepily around were to be believed. Not that that was a problem, of course. The mutant part wasn't, at least. Not in her book. That was to be expected, all things considered. The being followed around by creepy uniformed men who kept muttering ominously about 'mutant spawn' and 'The Colonel', on the other hand? Now that _was_ a problem. A major problem.

Which was really the main reason she was here in the first place. Of course, finding Magnus would have been the ideal solution to that particular problem. But the father of her children seemed to have melted away like snow in the summer. Vanished off the face of the planet like he had never existed.

So this 'Professor', whoever he was, would have to do. For now, anyway.

The magnificent, intricately carved double doors cracked open. A single dark eye peered out. Then they opened some more, and a tall, chocolate skinned young man stood before her. With a slight frown, he gazed into her face, as if trying to read her mind. Hell, for all she knew he was doing just that. It was kind of unnerving.

Then his eyes slid down to the bulge of her belly.

"I…um. How may I help you ma'am?" the young man asked, pulling the door all the way open and stepping aside. Giving her room to enter the house, the mansion, if she so chose.

"I need to see the Professor. Um…Professor Xavier?" she said, checking the newspaper cut-out in her hand.

"Yes?" said a soft voice from somewhere further inside. A young man on a wheelchair rolled into the vestibule, wearing a tweed coat over a loose beige cardigan and looking more like a hapless graduate student than any kind of a professor. Magda's eyebrows twitched upwards. "I'm Charles Xavier," he smiled affably. "What can I do for you?"

Magda was seated on the plushest couch that her backside had ever had the privilege of touching, and she felt more comfortable than she had in a very long time. She forced herself to keep her eyes open.

The inordinately youthful professor...what was it he had called himself? Charles. Charles Xavier. Of course. Xavier was gazing at her with earnest concern, his head tilted to one side. She tried to focus on him. She didn't remember the last time she had been so sleepy.

"But how do you know…why do you think your children will be mutants?" Charles was asking, his voice soft and indistinct.

"Well, 'coz their father was, I s'pose. A very powerful one at that. And the uniformed men I told you about keep muttering about some Stryker wanting them for experimenting on mutants. Guess that wouldn't be the case if they weren't mutants now, would it?"

Xavier stiffened. "Stryker? Do you mean Colonel Stryker?"

"I s'pose," Magda shrugged. "They do call him 'The Colonel' sometimes."

"I see," Xavier pressed his lips together, seemingly lost in thought. He was kind of cute, Magda supposed. If you went for the nerdy, bookish type. Not that Magda did, personally. "And this…um, their father. You said he was a mutant? Do you, ah, can you tell me his name? Do you know what kind of a mutant he was? Had you ever seen him using his powers?"

"Sure," Magda nodded, popping the last of the buttery scones into her mouth. They were delicious. She would have to ask Xavier for the recipe. "He was… _is_ a metal bender. Very powerful, as I said. His name is Magnus Eisenhardt."

Xavier's eyes widened, and a flurry of emotions that Magda was too exhausted to discern passed swiftly over his features. Then they were gone, vanishing as quickly as they had appeared. "I see," he said, a faraway look in his eyes that Magda couldn't quite place. Then, seeming to catch himself, he focused back on her and smiled apologetically. "Well, welcome to our school, Miss Maximoff."

 **1964**

The study was cozy and warm. The fire cackled invitingly as Magda sat on the plush armchair near the hearth. She thought it might be an antique, her chair. Then again, on second thought, almost everything in this room probably was. Even the old metallic chess set that sat abandoned in the far corner of the room. She didn't know why, but seeing that old set always made her feel a vague sense of loss.

Little Wanda giggled on her lap, trying to swallow her index finger.

"They're feisty tonight, aren't they?" Charles laughed, holding Pietro up on his lap. The little boy's fingers zapped haphazardly in front of Charles's face. Her son was manifesting early, Charles said. He seemed sure that Wanda was a mutant too, though apparently a late bloomer. After everything she had seen him do over the past few months, Magda was inclined to trust his judgement where mutant tykes were concerned.

"Well, that's one way of putting it," she grinned, sipping at her tea. God, what she wouldn't give for something strong and alcoholic. But apparently red wine was not something nursing mothers were supposed to indulge in. And Charles was kind enough to never drink anything but tea in her presence, lest he tempt her to throw caution to the wind and down one just for the heck of it. "It was a miracle Pietro didn't zap Ororo's hair right off her skull this morning, poor girl. He's turning into a right little monster, this son of mine."

Charles giggled at the memory. "He'll settle down. They all do, eventually. Not that they're usually this young when they get here. You did good in class today, by the way."

"I did though, didn't I?" Magda grinned proudly. "Never thought of myself as a teacher before I got here. Guess they were onto something when they said that time teaches everything."

Charles smiled warmly. "I'm really very grateful for all your help around here, Miss Maximoff. Ah, I mean Magda," he corrected swiftly as she glared at him. "I'm hoping we won't be so excruciatingly short-staffed come next year." Pietro squealed, and Charles rocked him awkwardly in his arms. Magda hid her grin behind a dainty hand.

"Well, you bettern't be. I wouldn't be around to save your pretty little ass if you were, Professor."

Charles frowned. "What do you mean?"

Magda sighed, sobering. "I can't just stay here forever Charles, you know that. I…I love this place. Love all of you with all my heart…" she choked back a sob that rose unbidden to her throat. Really, it was a habit she needed to break, tearing up at the most inopportune moments. "But I'll never fit in here. Not really."

Charles looked agitated. "That's not true–"

Magda smiled. "Take a breath Charles. Your ears are turning red. I'm not saying you'll treat me any differently because of what I am. 'Cause I'm human. I wouldn't leave my darling babies with you if I thought you were some kind of psycho supremacist about to turn them into little mutant Hitlers," she laughed. Charles's shoulders relaxed somewhat and he smiled down at little Pietro curled up in his lap. Wanda was already sound asleep in Magda's.

"But despite all your efforts, Charles, the fact remains that I _am_ human. And nobody else in this house is–"

"I could hire other non-mutant teachers next semester–"

Magda held up a hand. "You could. And you could do a thousand other things, which I have no doubt that you _would_ do if I let you. But none of it would change the fact that I would still be an outsider." She leaned forward, careful not to disturb her sleeping daughter. "Listen to me, Charles. Wanda and Pietro…they're the best thing that has ever happened to me. But…but I'm not ready yet. To be a parent. To be a mother. To be responsible for the health and wellbeing of two little humans. Much less to help them deal with their mutant powers and all that other stuff," she waved her hand, then sighed. "God, I must sound like such a horrible person, saying these things."

"No you don't. You sound…" Charles smiled. "Human. And I mean that in the best possible way."

Magda released a breath she hadn't known she was holding. Since when did Charles's opinion of her start mattering so much, anyway? She guessed it was the whole professor vibe he gave off. You couldn't help but want to be in his good books. It was really kind of annoying.

"I'll come back. Anytime you need me. Anytime they…" she looked down at Wanda, bit her lip. Then continued. " _If_ they ever need me."

Charles sighed. Wrapped a hand around Pietro and settled him more securely on his thigh. "You're their mother, Magda. They'll _always_ need you. No matter what."

Magda looked into his eyes to check for any signs of deception. For once, she wished _she_ was the telepath in the room. Her voice shook as she uttered the next words. "You promise?"

Charles dipped his head, dark hair falling into his sparkling eyes. "I promise."

 **1966**

There was a tiny little storm cloud brewing over the heads of a couple of boys running after a ball. One of them sported wide, webbed feet and wore no shoes. The other one seemed to be floating a couple of inches above the ground every few steps. A white haired girl stood a few feet away from them, guarding what might have been a makeshift goal-post constructed from bamboo sticks.

Emma Frost made herself invisible to the children and moved further into the grounds, walking steadily towards the stately mansion standing in the middle of all the greenery. The bundle in her arms squirmed and moaned and she glanced down at it. It was drooling on her arm. She sighed mentally. Toddler management was _not_ her forte.

 _Miss Frost._ Said a soft, professorial voice in her head, sounding wary and intrigued in equal measure. _Welcome to the school. What brings you here?_

 _Let me in, Xavier._ As she approached the mansion, Emma's pace quickened. And if her tone was a little brusquer than was necessarily called for, well, after twenty-four straight hours of babysitting, Emma felt that she had earned the right. _I am not getting drooled on by your sister's ungodly spawn a moment longer than I have to._

 _My sister's…_ The voice trailed off as the large mahogany double doors swung open to let her in. Emma looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone in the vicinity. Since when had Xavier developed telekinesis in addition to his freakishly strong telepathy?

 _Technology, Miss Frost,_ the telepath reassured her calmly. _My study, if you please_. A clear map of the path leading to Xavier's study floated into her mind. Emma was vaguely impressed. Xavier communicated as flawlessly in images as he did in words.

 _Why thank you, Miss Frost_. There was a tinge of amusement in the man's mental voice, and Emma imagined a peacock puffing out his feathers. She could feel Xavier laughing. It somehow made the day seem a little brighter than before.

 _All this babysitting is driving me mad,_ she informed him.

The study, when she finally stepped into it, did not surprise her at all. It was exactly the kind of place she would have expected Xavier to inhabit – bright, wood panelled, cosily furnished and full of books.

"Living up to your stereotype with panache, I see." She took the seat across from Xavier and settled the drooling little tyke on one knee.

"Coming from you, I consider that a compliment," her companion smiled, giving her pristine outfit a cursory onceover. "Tea, Miss Frost?"

"How can I say no when you ask so nicely?"

Xavier poured her a cup of impeccably brewed Assam. Then he looked curiously down at the blue-skinned, yellow eyed, drooling demon spawn on her knee and raised a delicate eyebrow. "You were saying something about my sister and her…ah–"

"Spawn," Emma provided, taking a sip of the truly delicious beverage in her cup. She closed her eyes. "I could get used to this."

"Spawn, yes. You were saying?"

"That I refuse to be drooled on by it a second longer than necessary, in essence. Feel free to take it off my person whenever the mood strikes."

A toddler-sized blur zapped into the room and crash landed on Charles's lap. Behind it trundled in a similarly sized red-haired bundle of oversized pajamas. As Emma watched, Xavier leaned forward and pulled her up onto his knee, settling her on the one not already occupied by the boy. "As you can see, Miss Frost, I'm, ah, already booked at the moment."

Emma raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Aren't they a bit young for school? Cradle robbing for students doesn't become you, Professor."

"Well," Xavier said, his gaze returning to the little monster still inhabiting Emma's lap. "I could ask _you_ the same question."

Lifting two fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose, Emma sighed. "Why don't you, then?"

Quite impassively, Xavier listened to her talk about Kurt. About Mystique's unexpected pregnancy. About the birth of her son over a year ago. About their slipshod attempts at keeping him alive through all the violence and fighting. About his sister's injury on a mission gone wrong less than a week ago. And about the impossibility of raising a child amidst the constant violence, chaos and uncertainty that was the Brotherhood's domain of expertise.

"How is she now…Raven?" Charles asked at length, covering for the hitch in his voice with a sip of his already-cooling tea.

It did not escape Emma's notice that he had not called her by her assumed name. "She'll live." Then, seeing the forlorn look on his face, she relented. Despite popular opinion, she did have a functional heart buried in there somewhere. "It was a serious wound, but nothing…permanent. The bullet missed all of her vital organs, fortunately. She'll recover fully within a few months, more or less."

Xavier nodded, his shoulders sagging infinitesimally. Not for the first time, Emma wondered where she would be now if any member of her extended biological family had given half as much of a fuck about her as Charles seemed to, about a girl who had tried to steal food from his kitchen years ago.

"If you don't mind," he said at length, clearing his throat awkwardly. "May I ask…ah, who the father is?"

"Azazel."

Emma could see the wheels turning in Xavier's head as he matched the name to the face of the mutant who had taken them from the beach all those years ago. Taken them, and left him and his would-be X-Men to fend for themselves on the beach, surrounded by American and Russian warships. "Things change, Professor."

Xavier smiled wistfully. "Don't I know it, Miss Frost?"

Minutes passed with neither of them breaking the tenuous silence. Sean bustled in eventually to shoo the children – they were apparently twins – out for 'dinner and bed', stopping to give Emma a rather impressive stink-eye on his way out.

"Well," Emma said at last, looking down at the now snoozing toddler on her lap. "Will you take him?"

Xavier closed his eyes and leaned back, a corner of his lips quirking upward. "You wouldn't be here, Miss Frost, had you thought for a moment that I wouldn't."

"Quite true. Was I mistaken in my assumption, then?"

Charles looked up at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought. "No, Miss Frost. You were not."

"Emma."

He focused back on her, and she raised an eyebrow in return. "I'm not your homeroom teacher, Xavier. The formality gets old after a while."

"Charles, then." He held out his hands, and she passed little Kurt over to him. He held the child with the grace of one long practiced in the fine art of toddler-care.

"Wealth and privilege have kept you from your true calling, Charles. You were born to be a nanny."

He laughed, letting the child nibble serenely on his little finger. "You are not the first person to have told me that, funnily enough." A sigh escaped his lips. "Where _is_ Erik, Emma? I have been trying to get in touch with him for…what? Almost two years now. And to no avail. There are things I need to speak to him about. Where on earth is he?"

The earnest blue eyes gazing hopefully at her almost made Emma wish she could tell him. She threw up every mental shield she had and reinforced them twice over, just in case. "That is not…information I'm at liberty to reveal."

"I see."

"I could take a message, if you want," she said at length, seeing the other telepath's face fall. Emma wondered if Charles knew how easy he was to read. It wasn't possible that he didn't, really. He _could_ read minds, after all.

For a moment, Charles gazed speculatively at her, head tilted slightly to one side. Then he shook his head, a tiny movement. "Even if I wanted to, it isn't my secret to reveal."

Emma would have given quite a lot to know whose it was, if not his. "I see," she said instead.

 **1967**

Charles put the receiver down and ran a hand through his hair. Well, what was he supposed to do now? Not that that was anything more than a rhetorical question. He knew exactly what he had to do. There was nothing for it but to go to the bloody hospital and see for himself what new mischief his step-brother had gotten up to now.

The first time Cain had called him was back when they were still at Oxford, him and Raven. He folded his hands on the desk before him and forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat that thinking of those times always seemed to bring about, even now. He had to focus.

The first time Cain had called – and God only knew where he had managed to get their number – it had been about money. In that Cain had needed it, and Charles had been expected to provide it. Charles had been all but ready to hang up on his childhood tormentor, but something about the sheer desperation in Cain's half-intoxicated voice had stopped him. Charles hadn't required his telepathy to know that something very bad was going to happen if Cain didn't get what he needed, and soon.

In the end, it was more a concern for what Cain might _do_ , than what might be done _to_ him, that had prompted Charles to send the money to the address his step brother had blabbered into the phone.

The second time Cain had called, it had been about money again. This time, though, the request had been delivered with what might pass for sobriety in some circles, along with a vague promise to pay the money back as soon as possible.

The third time had been a couple of weeks before Cuba, and all that Cain asked for was legal advice about some minor misdemeanour or other.

The fourth time had been a week after Charles had lost the use of his legs, and he had been in no position to offer either advice or monetary assistance. Cain had spoken to him for exactly twenty minutes anyway.

And so they had established a pattern. One phone call every month. Sometimes, when Cain got himself into more trouble than he could handle on his own, there'd be two. And that was the end of that.

Until the latest phone call, of course. Not from Cain, but from some hospital in Pittsburgh that claimed to have in their care a half-dead Cain Marko. A half-dead Cain Marko who had apparently had Charles Xavier listed as his primary emergency contact.

Charles wondered if he should be touched or aghast by that kind of unwarranted trust.

Hospital rooms still made Charles vaguely uncomfortable. The muted colours and the scent of antiseptic reminded him of the weeks after Cuba. The weeks he had spent getting used to the fact that he couldn't walk anymore. Would never walk again. And the fact that that wasn't even close to being his greatest loss.

Cain had tubes and wires attached to almost every part of his body. And the parts that didn't have wires had bandages. He was alert, though. And he recognized Charles the moment he rolled into the room. Which, considering the number of years since they had seen each other, was in itself more than Charles had hoped for.

"You have a knack for attracting bad company, don't you?" Cain snickered, glancing down at the wheelchair. Then he wheezed, the words apparently too much for his overtaxed lungs.

Charles raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you're in a position to be passing judgement on my life choices right now."

Cain snickered again, sipping on the glass of water the nurse handed him. "Fair enough."

"What happened?" Charles asked, positioning himself next to the bed. He signalled for Darwin to wait outside the room and after a moment's hesitation, the young man left them alone.

Cain closed his eyes and leaned back. "Read my mind, why don't you?"

"I'm sorry?"

Cain shrugged. "It's kind of a long story. And," he pointed at himself. "Not exactly in the best condition for long stories at the moment. 'Sides, it's not the kind of thing you'd believe if I told you anyway."

Charles sighed. "I don't need to read your mind to trust you, Cain."

Cain looked him straight in the eyes and gritted out, "And I don't need you to trust me. I need you to _do something_."

For a minute, Charles held the other man's gaze. Cain wasn't lying, or at least didn't think he was. That would have to do for the moment. With a brief nod, Charles dove in.

When he finally emerged, Charles felt as though somebody had kicked him in the gut.

"Who were they?" he asked, and he barely recognized his own voice. "Do you have their names?

"I have a list," Cain grinned, all sharp edges and jagged corners.

"Good. You're coming with me. We need a plan."

"Where to, Chuck?"

"Why," Charles smiled, letting a hint of genuine mirth creep onto his features. "Home, of course."

In the end they rescued twenty children, and brought two of them back to the mansion. The only two that didn't have tearful parents eagerly awaiting their return in various parts of the country.

Remy was four, Kitty seven. Both were malnourished and looked at least a couple of years younger than their chronological age.

"We're gonna have to fix that," Sean told the cook, with Remy on his shoulders and Kitty hiding behind his legs.

Charles smiled, before getting dragged off to referee a wrestling match between Scott and Ororo.

"Thank you," he murmured to Cain, who was already there, leaning on his crutches and teaching Bobby how to execute a perfect backflip.

His stepbrother smirked. "Don't mention it, Charlie."

 **1969**

They had been arguing for the last twenty minutes. Mystique was sure that if Erik could use his powers in this room, the entire building would be nothing but a pile of rubble by now. As it was, Magneto all but shook with barely repressed fury.

"What did you think you would achieve, Charles, by keeping my children from me?" he sneered, all but spitting the words out like verbal projectiles in the telepath's direction. And if Charles's expression was anything to go by, they had not missed their target. "Did you think you could use them to control me, after all your other tactics had failed?"

Alex snarled. "We weren't _keeping_ anything from you, you self-righteous bastard! We tried to contact you, to inform you, over and over again. And we could never manage it. You'd vanished off the face of the planet. Vanished so completely your girlfriend had to come to _us_ for protection from Stryker because she couldn't bloody _find_ you when she needed you. Surprise surprise!"

Magneto growled and launched himself at Alex, but was stopped by one of Sean's ear-piercing screams before he could reach his target. Before he had fully recovered from that acoustic assault, Emma had her hand over his shoulder in a vice-like grip that dug into the folds of his jacket. "Enough."

Erik's face split into a smile that would have scared the living daylights out of a killer shark. "Indeed, it _is_ enough. It is time I claimed what was mine. I'll leave, and I'll take my children with me. Do what I should have done years ago."

"That," Emma said calmly, letting her grip slacken just a fraction. "Would be a mistake."

Erik whirled on her so fast it made Raven's eyes cross. "What did you say?" he all but whispered into her ear.

"I said," Emma answered unperturbed, looking unflinchingly into Erik's eyes. "That removing your children from the school would be a mistake. They are children, not soldiers. They have no business being at a military camp. And that is precisely what we are, Magneto. It is what you have made us, what you want us to be. Soldiers. Warriors. And a battlefield is no place for a child to be."

For a few moments, they just stared at each other, Erik almost vibrating with rage and defiance while Emma gazed calmly, yet firmly back at him, her hand still planted on his shoulder.

The stalemate was finally broken by Charles. "It's time to leave. We can finish this conversation back home," her brother's voice said, having regained some of its customary serenity and composure.

Erik jerked back to look at Charles, seemingly forgetting about Emma as Charles turned back towards the doorway. "I want to see my children." It was a demand, forceful and uncompromising. But hidden somewhere beneath the layers of antagonism and hostility, Raven thought she heard the vestiges of a plea. She knew in that moment that Erik would beg, if need be, for his children. Without knowing them, he already loved them.

Charles looked at his former friend for less than a second. Then he inclined his head. "Of course. You can come with us to the school, if you please."

They had been at the mansion for less than two whole days. Raven – and she _was_ Raven now. Not Mystique; not Magneto's second-in-command; simply Raven – had barely spent five minutes of that time away from Kurt. She loved everything about her son, couldn't get enough of him. She couldn't remember a time when she had felt as effortlessly content as she did in his presence.

Kurt had taken a few hours to warm up to her. _He's a shy kid_ , Hank had said reassuringly.

And Raven had faced down death and mayhem with far less trepidation than she had felt during those short hours that had seemed to last for years.

But eventually, he _had_ smiled at her. Had held his little arms wide open to be pulled into her lap. And Raven had felt the weight of the world lifted off her shoulders.

She could only imagine what Erik was feeling. While she had been keenly aware, all these years, of what she was missing, he hadn't even known that he had anything to miss.

"Catch!" Kurt yelped, throwing the soft rubber ball at her and dragging her out of her ruminations. Raven extended a casual hand to catch the object flying sedately in her direction and prepared to throw it at Kitty, who was standing a few feet to the left of Kurt.

That was when she saw him. Walking across the lawn with a sickle in his hand and a brown-haired little boy on his shoulder. He walked beside Darwin, laughing at some joke that Raven was too far away to hear. Not that she wanted to.

All that she wanted to do at the moment was to get Cain Marko as far away from her son, her family, as she possibly could. All she wanted to do was to see him pay for what he had done to her all those years ago, what he and his father had done to _them_.

Before she had had a chance to process or analyse her own actions, she stood in front of Cain, the game abandoned behind her. " _You!_ What are you doing here?"

For a moment, Cain's eyes widened and he took a single step back, away from her, as if seeing a ghost from an old nightmare. Then he recovered, and a lopsided grin split his puffy face in two. "Ah, if it's not little sister. Look who's flown back to the coop." He put the boy down and shooed him off in the direction of the other children before turning to face her fully. Standing almost between them, Darwin looked confused and more than a little unsettled, but quite determined not to leave the two of them alone.

"How _dare_ you?!" Raven snarled, too busy glaring at Cain to spare a thought for anyone else in the vicinity. "After all that you did, how _dare_ you come back to this house again!" Had they not been surrounded by children, Raven was sure she would have attacked him.

Cain smirked, and the expression made her skin crawl. It was like all the years had melted away and she was six again, cowering behind a ten-year-old Charles as Cain loomed over them both with that malicious little smile on his lips.

Cain was saying something, and it took Raven a moment to pull herself back from the past to pay attention to his words. "Why, I'm the groundskeeper of this fine institution, Miss. Here by special invitation of the Headmaster himself."

In that moment, Raven would have given her right arm to be able to wipe that smug grin right off his face. "I will _kill_ you," she hissed at him.

"Raven," said a soft, cool voice behind her. The goddamn voice she would recognize anywhere in the universe. "Please, just–"

She whirled on him, cutting him off before he could begin to lay out his excuses. "How _could you_ , Charles? How could _you_ bring him _here_ , into what you pretend to call a school! Into a house full of children! What could possibly have compelled you to _invite_ a sadistic bully into this house? Into the place you call a safe haven for mutants!"

"The fact that he has changed, perhaps? That he has helped us in the past when we needed it?" Charles said, tiredly but firmly. He rolled closer to the little group that had gathered around Cain, forcing Raven to look down at him on his wheelchair. It wasn't the first time she had seen her brother since Cuba, of course. But it _was_ the first time that they had been placed in such close physical proximity. The first time they had held a conversation that wasn't across the length and breadth of a rubble-laden battlefield. It was disorienting, to say the least.

Then Charles raised an eyebrow in that superior, arrogant way of his and Raven's temper flared, her blood boiling in her veins. "Changed?! Cain Marko?" She sneered. "You're even more delusional than Magneto says you are, Charles, if you really believe that. The likes of him can never change."

"The likes of _me_?" Cain said. His tone was surprisingly calm, though he had pushed his huge shoulders back and was standing a little straighter than before. Raven wondered momentarily if Charles was pacifying him mentally, forcing him to behave. Before she could scrutinize him further, however, he spoke again: "And what would _that_ be like, I wonder? Because whatever asshattery I might have pulled as a fucked up kid twenty years ago, I don't believe _I_ ever left my brother to bleed out on a beach while I buggered off to play rebel with some dude in a fancy helmet."

Raven barely recognized the guttural sound that escaped her lips before she launched herself at Cain. She would wring his thick, muscular neck with her bare hands, if she had to.

" _That's enough_!" Charles's voice rang throughout the grounds as he all but inserted himself – wheelchair and all – between her and Cain. Time seemed to stop as he glared at them both. "That will be enough. There are _children_ here, all around you. This is neither the place nor the time. Cain, Raven – get back into the house immediately. I'll be there in a moment." Then, he wheeled towards the little circle of kids that was watching them from the shadows of the peripheral trees.

Later, Raven would marvel at the fact that it never occurred to her, even once, to disobey her brother. At the moment, however, her mind was too busy dissecting every word that Cain had said to pay much attention to anything else.

She turned around and stormed off in the direction of her room.

She had procrastinated long enough. Raven sighed into the steaming cup of tea in her hand. She had made it just the way Charles liked it. Or at least, just the way he used to, over seven years ago. It was strange, in a way, being in this house and not knowing exactly where everything was. Not knowing what her brother's favourite tea was. Not knowing who he even was, anymore. Not really. It was not a feeling Raven was accustomed to, and she didn't think she liked it.

The afternoon classes had ended over two hours ago, and Hank said Charles would be in his study. It was not a conversation she was looking forward to. But she knew it was one they needed to have.

Kurt and Wanda sat on Charles's lap, munching on cookies. Pietro sat with Remy on top of Charles's paper-strewn desk, his mouth covered in crumbs. Kitty, Ororo and Scott were seated a few feet away on a settee by the fireplace, half-eaten cookies clutched in their hands.

Over the years, Raven had become accustomed to seeing her brother's study littered with a great number of interesting and alarming things. She had never thought she would see it littered with children.

She wondered momentarily where Magneto was, before remembering Hank dragging a grumbling Erik off to fix some glitch in the new Cerebro. Perhaps Hank had really needed Magneto's help, but she thought he was just being kind, making it easier for her.

Charles seemed to sense her arrival – or he might have known she was coming before she knew it herself. Raven shook her head. There was no point in going down that well-trodden path again. Her brother stopped the story he had been telling the children and smiled up at her. It was a genuine smile, she could tell. She couldn't begin to imagine why, but he was happy to see her.

"Ah, Raven. Do come in. We'll be finished in a moment." He waved her inside.

She walked obediently in and placed the steaming tea set in front of him. His smile brightened as he wrapped his fingers around the warm china of the teacup, and it warmed something inside of her that she thought had died a long time ago. The sense of déjà vu made her throat clench in an involuntary spasm of nostalgia, forcing her to look away.

They were finally alone by the time Charles offered her a leftover cookie. A million quips sprung to her lips as she extended a hand to accept it. Biting her lip, she swallowed them back. It was a privilege she had forfeited on that beach seven years ago.

She watched Charles as she nibbled on her cookie. Really _looked_ at her brother in God only knew how long. There were fine crow's feet around his eyes and a little silver in the perpetually overgrown mess of his hair. But apart from that he looked almost exactly like she remembered him. Like an exquisitely crafted porcelain doll come to life.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Charles turned from the window to squint at her, looking taken aback. "What for?"

There was nothing for it now but to let it all out. "What Cain said–"

"He was out of line."

"He was," her lips quirked upward and she looked down at her hands, which were folded tightly on her lap. "And I'd gladly break his nose the first chance I get."

"Raven–"

"But he was also right," she cut him off. Glanced up to look him in the eye, to make sure he knew she meant what she was saying. Not that that would be an issue for Charles if he didn't want it to be. But something told her he wasn't reading her mind at the moment. Hadn't read her mind since they had returned to the mansion.

Charles sighed. "That was the past, Raven. A long time ago. It doesn't matter anymore–"

"Yes it does," she retorted. And she was back at the kitchen, arguing with her brother about identity and acceptance. And love. She didn't know why talking to Charles always made her feel this way. Made her want to take him by the shoulders and shake him and make him stop being so goddamn _reasonable_ all the time. She sucked in a breath and pressed her lips together, trying to calm her racing heart. "Yes it _does._ I-I don't regret going with Magneto, Charles. I don't. I would do it again, if I had to. I'd make the same choice I did all those years ago, because it _was_ the right one. I haven't stopped believing that."

Charles flinched. It was minute, almost imperceptible. To anyone else, it would have been. But she wasn't anyone else. Despite everything, she _was_ still Charles's sister. And, even now, she knew her brother inside out.

"But I do regret leaving you on that beach, Charles," Raven said, and it was like tearing a bit of her soul out from inside her chest. She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. "God, what I wouldn't give to be able to go back. To be able to do it right, this time. To be able to say that I didn't abandon my brother, my only friend, to the mercy of enemy warships because I was too much of a damned idiot to be able to see past my own self-pity." She laughed, but there was no humour in it. She felt a single tear make its way down her cheek and into the hollow of her throat.

"Raven," Charles said but she couldn't let him stop her. Not now. She had to get it out because she didn't know if she would have another chance.

"I regret leaving you when you needed me the most. I regret betraying you, although I didn't know that was what I was doing at the time. And I–" she choked back a sob and forced herself to continue. "I regret not telling you any of this until now. Until I had to. I regret being too much of a coward to even try to make things right between us. God Charles, I'm so sorry."

The silence stretched for a few seconds before she gathered the courage to look at the telepath again. Charles sat perfectly still, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. At any other time, she would have patted herself on the back for leaving Charles Xavier at a loss for words.

This wasn't any other time, though. She left her seat and folded herself in front of his chair, taking both his hands into her own. She took a deep breath and tried to find the words to say what she meant. "I'm not asking for forgiveness, Charles. Even from you, that would be too much to ask for. And I'm done asking permission to do the things I want to do. The things I need to do.

"I don't know how I'll do it. Not like there's a manual for this sort of thing. But I _will_ make things right between us again. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many times I mess up. I _will_ make it right. I _will_ be the sister that you deserve, and the mother that Kurt needs. I'm done running away from my family, from being who I am." She bit her trembling lips, and felt another tear trickle past them. "I will make this right, Charles."

Charles smiled softly, squeezing her blue hands in his own paler ones. "If anyone can do it, my dear, it's you."

Pietro zapped past Kitty to get to the ball Remy had shot into the basket with preternatural force. He reached the basket moments before the ball had passed through it, blocking the way and slapping the ball out to his right. Before it could roll away, however, little Kurt appeared out of a portal to Pietro's side and caught the falling ball, throwing it back into the basket. A joyous cheer rose into the cool morning air even as the scoreboard automatically recorded the new tally. From the side-lines, Charles blew his whistle and clapped his hands, signalling snack-time. The children gathered around him, and were handed cakes, cookies and fruit-juice by Sean.

Erik couldn't help but smile as he watched the scene through the window of his room. It was the childhood he had left behind in his parents' backyard in Germany. The life he had dreamed of ever since. And yet a life he had never dared to hope for. Not for himself, at least.

Wanda and Pietro. His children. His blood. In a way, it hurt him to look at them. Wanda had Edie's eyes, her smile. And when Pietro wasn't zapping about at superhuman speeds, he had Jakob's gait, his exact posture and bearing. It was like Erik had gotten his family back. Had received everything he had ever wanted. And yet, he barely knew them. And he almost didn't think he deserved to.

He wondered where Magda was. He wondered if he should be angry with her, for going away and leaving their children behind. But then, it wasn't as though _he_ was in a position to judge. After all, he was the one who had left her. Left her and their children to the mercy of William Stryker. Erik's blood boiled in his veins, nails digging into the skin of his palm. He barely noticed. Stryker was going to pay for what he had done. If it was the last thing Erik did, he would make sure of that.

Wanda squealed, calling Erik's attention back to the playground. Sean was tossing her into the air as the other children giggled, clambering to go next. For a second, Erik was back on the satellite dish again, pushing Cassidy off the rails even as Charles admonished him in mock horror.

Charles. Erik would have given his soul to know what to do with Charles. How to fill the gaping chasm that had festered between them over the years. Charles, who had taken Magda in when Erik had not been there to protect her; to protect his children. Charles, who had raised Erik's children like his own. Who now had Wanda curled sleepily on his lap even as Pietro encouraged Sean to throw him even higher into the air. Charles, who had been more of a mother and a father to Erik's children than he could ever hope to be.

Erik wished he could put a name to the feeling at the pit of his stomach. But what did you call an undefinable clump of guilt, gratitude and jealousy? It was an emotion without a name, and yet it was tearing him apart.

"He's good with them, isn't he?" Mystique said as she walked up to stand beside him. He had felt the buckles of her belt the moment she stepped onto the floor, but it was still a small relief to hear her voice next to him. They gazed out the window together. "He always was. Always had a way…with children, I mean. Even when he was a kid himself," she laughed. "Makes sense in hindsight, doesn't it? He was born to be a teacher."

For a moment, Erik said nothing. Then she rounded on him. "What are you thinking, Magneto?"

"I'm thinking we need to leave."

Her eyes narrowed. "And leave the children behind? Again?"

He tried to hide the emotions raging under his skin. "Of course not."

Raven said nothing for a moment. Then she turned back to the window. "You're planning to take them away."

Erik said nothing. He didn't need to.

"It would destroy him," she said softly.

"They're not his."

"Aren't they?" She sighed, turned back to look at Erik, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "Tell me you really believe that."

Erik pressed his lips together and looked away. "It doesn't matter what I believe. It is the truth."

"What will you do with them, Magneto?" She had used the title deliberately, and the significance of it wasn't lost on him. "Where will you take them? Where could you possibly take them where they'd be happier, safer than they are here?"

"I'm not–"

"Taking the children away from the school would be a mistake, and you know that just as well as I do. So the question is, what is it that you really want?"

"They can't stay here forever, hiding from the world, hoping they're never found out by the rest of humanity," he snapped. "That's a fool's dream. And they'll all be massacred the moment it's over."

"Perhaps," she looked away. "But the question is, when that happens, _if_ it happens…will you be here to protect them? Or will you be on the other side of the planet, fighting someone else's war as your home burns to the ground?"

Story time in Charles's study was perhaps Erik's favourite time of the day. He had been reluctant to attend at first. But he had been dragged in by the combined forces of Wanda, Pietro and Kurt, who had wanted him to provide details on the story about how Mr. Cassidy had learned to fly.

After that, he was addicted. It was everything he loved in the world encapsulated within the confines of a single fire-lit room. Mutant children – _his_ children – freely flaunting their powers as they enjoyed story time over milk and cookies, basking in each other's company.

And then, of course, there was Charles – ensconced in his metallic throne behind the wide teakwood desk, sipping his tea and commanding the attention of the whole room with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a tiny quirk of his lips. Sometimes, he told the stories. Sometimes he left it to one of the other adults to do so. But there was never any doubt about who was at the centre of the event. Charles seemed to command that position without even trying.

Erik had walked up to the old chess set abandoned in one corner of the room, during one such session. He made a move. He wasn't sure why he did it. Didn't really think anybody would notice the change. Perhaps it was just an innate desire to leave some sort of a mark. Some proof of his presence here.

The next day, somebody had made a counter move. Erik grinned.

"Pietro is doing remarkably well with his control. But that is to be expected, considering how early he manifested. Wanda will take a few years to catch up yet, but will perhaps be even better than her brother when she does." Charles moved his Bishop and took a sip of his tea.

They sat across from each other near the fireplace, the metal chess set laid out between them. It was like the last seven years had never existed.

"It's not just about control, Charles. It's about mastery too. About power." Erik moved his Knight in front of his King.

"Are they so different, my friend?"

Erik smiled, seeing an opening. The telepath was being less careful than usual. He took a sip of his wine. "Aren't they? The ability to prevent damage, I would say, is diametrically opposed to the capacity to cause it." He moved his Queen and took Charles's Bishop.

"Check," Charles smiled, taking Erik's Queen with a pawn positioned strategically behind the Bishop. "And not always. You cannot effectively accomplish the one without managing the other."

Erik's eyes sparkled. "Competitive as ever, I see."

"Would you rather I wasn't?"

Erik looked up to meet his companion's eyes. "Never, Charles," he said with as much honesty as he could manage. "I would never want you to hold back on my account."

Charles looked away. He didn't seem to know how to answer that. The silence stretched for a few seconds and Erik felt his fingers twitch. Perhaps he had had too much to drink. Or perhaps he just wanted to be doing _something_ that wasn't sitting on his hands and staring off into space.

He reached out and took one of Charles's hands in his. He squeezed the delicate fingers between his own larger ones in what might have been interpreted as a friendly gesture, if one was being wilfully obtuse. Then he brought them to his lips and shattered that illusion into a million jagged pieces.

Charles froze.

"I'm sorry," he said after a few seconds of holding Charles's cool fingers against his lips. "I'm so sorry." He wasn't even sure what he was apologising for anymore. He let Charles go.

"Erik," Charles said, leaning forward. "There is nothing to forgive. There never was."

Erik laughed. It was a bitter, broken thing. "No, I suppose not. You cannot forgive the unforgivable, after all."

Charles sighed. "That's not – that's not true and you know it. And for what it's worth, I _do_ forgive you, Erik. I forgave you years ago. I wasn't lying about that. There really isn't anything that you need to apologize for anymore. Not to me, at least."

"Then why?"

Charles closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. "Because forgiveness is not a reset button, my friend. Just because–" he opened his eyes to meet Erik's. "Just because I forgive you doesn't mean that we can just pick up where we left off seven years ago. That's not how it works."

"Then tell me how it does?" Erik said. Almost pleaded. Subconsciously mirroring Charles's pose, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and gazed earnestly at his former friend and lover. "Tell me how it's supposed to work, Charles, and I promise you I'll do everything in my power to make it happen. Tell me what I have to do to earn your trust again. To earn a place in my children's lives. To be the father that they need; that they deserve."

Charles looked stricken. Like Erik had hit him across the face with everything he had.

He looked away and closed his eyes again, almost as if to shut out the world against the pain. Then his lips quirked into a wry little smile that made Erik's heart ache, although he didn't know why.

Charles looked down at his hands, which were folded primly on his lap. But when he spoke his voice was brittle, as though moments away from breaking. "You don't–" He stopped. Tried again. "You don't need to _seduce_ me to be close to your children, Erik. To have a place in their lives. You might believe me to be a monster, my friend, but I have never tried to keep your children away from you. And I never will, regardless of whether we are friends, enemies or neither. Your children will _always_ be yours, no matter what. And that's a promise." When he looked up, his eyes were bright, his face carefully blank.

"And so this," he flexed his fingers experimentally, as if feeling them for the first time in years. "Whatever it is, is completely unnecessary. I assure you."

"Charles…" Erik all but gaped at the telepath, who was already rolling out of the study. He was too shocked to be able to formulate a coherent response to anything Charles had said.

"Have a good night, my friend," Charles murmured. And then he was gone.

Charles ran his fingers – almost reverently – over the frayed cover of the ancient tome. He couldn't begin to imagine where Erik had managed to acquire it. It was an early 19th century treatise on genetic mutation. On the x-gene. Perhaps the first book ever published on the subject. First edition, because a second had never come out.

He sighed. Put the book back down on his desk, carefully. _We need to talk._ He sent the thought floating in Erik's general direction. He had to be careful to not accidentally read the surface thoughts on the metal-bender's mind. But Erik was only here, in Charles's vicinity without his helmet, because of his children. And he had promised he wouldn't take advantage of that. Wouldn't do anything to keep Erik from his family.

And Charles couldn't stand to break that promise. To really become the monster that Erik thought he was.

Erik walked into the study a few minutes later, an innocent expression pasted on his face. "You called?"

Charles gestured at the book. "Thank you."

Erik looked at the book. Then at Charles. Finally, he inclined his head just a fraction of an inch in acknowledgement.

"Where did you get it?"

A sardonic little smile. "Believe me, you don't want to know."

Charles couldn't help the answering smile that rose unbidden to his lips. "Okay. So whose idea was it then?"

"Who do you think? Hank, of course. He said you've been looking for this one for months."

"And so I have. I take it the mousse cake was Wanda's idea."

Erik nodded. "She said it was your favourite."

"It is. I think the only person in the world who likes it more than me is Wanda."

Erik laughed. "Figures. Well, Mystique came up with the Harris Tweed blazer. I think we can safely say that there was no self-interest _there_."

Charles smiled, then bit his lip. With every fiber of his body, he wanted to believe it. To keep it. To hold on to it with both his hands and never let go.

But he couldn't. It wasn't fair. To Erik, to himself, or to the children.

"What are you doing, Erik?"

"Feeding, clothing and educating you; if current trends are anything to go by."

Charles snorted. "Fair enough. So the question is, why?"

Erik shrugged, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Does there have to be a reason?"

"There's _always_ a reason, with you."

Erik looked away, gazed out of the window at the cloudy skies beyond. Charles waited. Two could play at this game.

"There's not," he exhaled, tried again. "This isn't some kind of a game, Charles. I'm not trying to win anything. Not even you. Not anymore." Charles wondered if he had imagined the slight hitch in Erik's voice, but dared not interrupt him.

"I left you on that beach. Put a bullet in your spine. Drove a bloody coin through your head." He laughed. It was almost a sob. "You have every right to hate me. God, Charles, I don't know how you can even stand to be near me. And I wouldn't–" he closed his eyes. Looked away. "I would understand, if you could never see me as anything more than a burden you have to bear for the twins' sake. But," He looked back at Charles, forcing the latter to look into his eyes. To see the honest agony in their azure depths. "But I have to _try_ , Charles. I couldn't live with myself, if I didn't. If I let you go again without even _trying_ to hold on."

"The children–" Charles began. But Erik cut him off with a defiant shake of his head.

He folded himself in front of Charles's chair and planted both hands on the armrests. A supplication and a demand – all wrapped into a single gesture. " _This_ is not about the children, Charles. They're my blood. My family. And I love them more than you could begin to imagine. But _this_ is not about them. This is about me. And about you. And about _us_. And you can accept that or reject it. Tell me you never want to be in the same room as me again. And I'll take it. But whatever you do, it has to be because _you_ want it. Not the children. Not your X-Men. This is about what _you_ want."

He pushed himself back to his feet, let go of the chair. Walked over to the door. Moments before leaving, he turned back again. "Tell me, Charles. Do you even remember what that is anymore?"

 **1970**

The party was finally over. Charles could hardly believe it. After all these weeks of planning, plotting and conspiring behind the twins' ever-vigilant backs, the surprise party had been a success. Pietro and Wanda's sixth birthday bash had gone off without a hitch. Well, unless you considered four broken windows and a bunch of shattered glassware to be a hitch, of course.

Charles moved his Rook and sipped his wine. His heart wasn't really in the game tonight. He had a splitting headache from all the sessions on Cerebro over the past week. And he still hadn't figured out how to properly integrate the new kids they had rescued from Trask Labs into the school. They were anxious and paranoid, not to mention severely malnourished. Charles wondered how long it would take before they were ready to start training.

The new Cerebro was more efficient and remarkably faster than the previous version. Charles made a mental note to congratulate Hank the next time he saw him. It also had a significantly wider range, which was how they had located the thirty-odd mutants hidden away in the underground lab, five of them no more than grade-schoolers.

But it was also far more strenuous than the last one had been, and seemed to have more lasting side effects. Or perhaps that was just because Charles had found himself quite unable to leave the machine until all the captives had been freed and the children brought safely home by the X-Men. He had spent more hours with Cerebro over the last week than he had in the previous six months combined. He supposed that was bound to have an effect sooner or later.

He rubbed a hand tiredly over his throbbing temple and almost unseeingly made his next move.

And then the world swayed around him and the last thing he remembered was Erik's alarmed face leaning over him, asking him what was wrong. Charles would have liked to tell him that it was just a spell of dizziness. That it would pass. But his tongue was heavy and it felt like too much of an effort to get the words out. So he just closed his eyes and let the darkness take over.

The first thing Charles was aware of was the fact that he was in motion. The next thing was that somebody had their arms wrapped tightly around him. The third was that that somebody had a really broad and muscular chest, against which Charles was firmly pressed.

Charles put these three disparate data sets together and drew the conclusion that he was in Erik's arms.

"E-Erik," he said groggily, pushing weakly against the man's upper body. "What're you doing?"

"Don't worry, Charles," Erik reassured him solicitously even as he kept walking. "Your virtue is perfectly safe with me. I'm taking you to your room. You blacked out over our game. Plus you have a fever. You're burning up."

He walked through the double doors of the master bedroom and deposited Charles – gently – onto his bed. He pulled the covers over him and then pressed the back of his hand to Charles's forehead. Charles winced. Erik shook his head, straightening. "I'll get you something for the headache and then take your temperature. This can't be good. I feel like I'm touching a furnace."

Erik went over to the drawer where Charles kept the medicine box. Where he had kept the box since before Cuba, when they had shared this room in all but name. Charles wondered what it said about him that his supposed enemy knew all about the layout of his bedroom. Thankfully, he felt too weak for self-recriminations at the moment, so he put that thought in the back of his mind and closed his eyes.

The next thing he knew was that Erik had an arm under his shoulders and was pulling him up into a sitting position. Positioning him against a pillow, he handed Charles a glass and two pills. Then he held the thermometer up like a weapon of war, gazing sternly down at his companion.

Charles swallowed the pills and let Erik position the thermometer in his mouth. He made a listless attempt to take the device but was simply rewarded with an annoyed grunt and a dismissive shake of the head.

"Thank you, my friend," he said finally, as Erik helped him lie back down and pulled two blankets over him.

Erik looked at him, nodded, then looked away. "Goodnight, Charles. I'll be in my room." He tapped his temple, "Call me if you need anything."

Erik turned away just as Charles reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Stay?"

"I…" Erik trailed off, staring at Charles's pale fingers encircling his wrist, wide-eyed.

Charles's lips quirked in an ironic little smile. "Don't worry, Erik. Your virtue is perfectly safe with me. You can take the sofa if you want."

He snorted. "How very generous of you. Not that I would particularly mind having my virtue compromised at the moment." Erik's tone was light, but his eyes had all the intensity of Magneto.

"Okay." Charles tugged lightly on his wrist.

Erik's eyes widened even further. He stilled under Charles's fingers, body going completely rigid.

"I-I'd be willing to give it a try. If you're amenable." Charles looked away.

For a moment, there was absolute silence. It was as if they had both stopped breathing.

Then, Erik laughed. "Amenable," he repeated, letting out a great guffaw that was as much a sigh as a snort. "Amenable, he says."

He leaned forward and brought Charles's hand to his lips. Then he kissed him on the forehead, then the nose and the corners of his mouth. He was like a man lost in a desert, who had finally found his oasis. "God, Charles. I've never been more _amenable_ to anything in my life." He pressed their lips together, gently, and buried his fingers in Charles's hair.

"Is that a yes, then?" Charles asked hesitantly as they came up for air.

Erik touched the side of Charles's face – soft and reverent – and traced a thumb over his lips. Then he leaned forward and brought their lips together in a chaste little kiss that was little more than the brushing of skin on skin. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, his breath warming Charles's face.

"Yes," he whispered. Charles almost had to strain to hear him. "God, Charles. _Yes_."

Charles closed his eyes and smiled softly into Erik's mouth.


End file.
